An open secret
by Mafierry
Summary: Marinette and Adrien are 2 teenagers with big secrets, but for how long can they keep them? The story explores a what-if scenario with various trials and tribulations and of course, romance!
1. Another day

It was another beautiful day in picturesque Paris or… at least it was supposed to be, but nothing seemed to work for Marinette that day. The alarm clock didn't ring, there was no hot water, her toast was burned and she almost wore her blouse inside out. Ignoring all these little unlucky accidents, she rushed to school since a presentation in History class would take place today and she didn't want to miss it. But what she didn't expect was a sudden shower.

 _Just my luck_ , she thought sighing.

She was sure the forecast hadn't mentioned anything about it and so she carried no umbrella with her. But even if she was mistaken, the result was still the same; she was half-way to school and all drenched. She looked around for a safe place, but she kept thinking that the more she was stalling here, the more chances she had of missing the start of the class. She decided to gamble and wait for the shower to fade away or at least until it became a light drizzle, because the last thing she wanted was to barge into the classroom dripping from everywhere, but she wasn't sure her luck would hold out.

"Marinette, are you ok?" asked Tikki, her kwami peeking from her safe and dry hiding spot.

"I wish I were! This rain…" she looked towards the sky which seemed disinclined to stop the rain. "Do you think I should transform into Ladybug and run to school? I'm sure I'll be done faster and probably drier!" she said half-jokingly.

"You know you could expose your secret this way! And the powers are not meant to be used this way." chastised her Tikki, but she was smiling kindly. Marinette sighed.

"I know, I didn't mean it… at least not completely." She smiled back. "But this day seems to be against me, I just wish it went away!" she waved her arms in front of her as if an invisible enemy was in front of her. "You'd better hide again. At least one of us should survive this unscathed!" Tikki giggled and hid again.

In any other situation she wouldn't mind being a bit late, but Adrien was to present first and she really didn't want to miss it for the world. He might just see her as a friend, but she couldn't help wanting to be near him as much as possible, so she squeezed her eyes closed and started praying in her mind for the rain to finally stop and let her be on time. After a couple of minutes of no apparent result and with her patience thinning out, she heard a car stop and someone speak.

"Do you need a lift, miss?" the stranger asked candidly. Marinette opened her eyes widely and gaped at the source of the voice. "Haha, did I scare you? I'm sorry."

"O-oh no! What are you talking about, Adrien? It was just unexpeprising. I mean, unexpected and surprising! Haha!" she managed to say, while fiddling her thumbs and trying to control her rising blushing face. In front of her stood Adrien, or more like the car that had Adrien in it. He was looking at her through the open window with a gentle smile and good humor in his eyes.

"Were you late, as well?"

"Just a bit… a lot… not sure what time it is currently, r-really."

"Not too early to reach the school bell ringing, but not too late to reach class before getting lectured!" he smiled and she smiled back instinctively. He could tell her she failed class, but she would probably still smile at him if he did. "Want a ride? I see you have no umbrella and this rain is trouble." She kept staring at him, not sure of what was happening. She probably stared for too long, because Adrien was now looking at her a bit puzzled. "Marinette? Is everything ok?"

"Uhh, yes yes! I was j-just thinking that my clothes are wet and I couldn't possibly get in the car!"

"Oh, no worries." his head vanished for a 2 seconds. "We already have waterproof sheets on the seats" he came back showing her a plastic sheet. "The rain caught us unprepared, as well. So, c'mon, get in, get in" and before she could utter a word, he opened the door and scooted inside so she could sit next to him.

 _Is this real life? Could everything be leading to this? Was every unlucky incident a "fee" for me getting this present?_ She kept asking herself frozen at the spot.

"Hurry up, because time is ticking away."

"Yes!" she jumped almost as if electrocuted and got into the car. Next to her Adrien was smiling like always.

The ride to school was a short one, but for the life of hers she couldn't remember anything at all. She was almost sure she was conversing with him, but it might have just been her mind playing tricks. She was already feeling nervous and embarrassed for stuttering so much in front of him once again, she knew she wouldn't be able to just chat with him naturally after that. On the other hand, she remembers clearly Adrien laughing and talking so she must have said something longer than a syllable.

Once they reached the school, the rain had let up a bit, but not nearly enough. Adrien had an umbrella with him and shared it with Marinette, who was ready to bolt at any moment. The thought of embarrassing herself further was the only thing that made her follow him without acting up.

"Let's hurry, because I am pretty sure we are almost completely late." said Adrien looking at the time.

"Yes! And sorry! Because of me you arrived even later…" she just realized that her lucky meeting with him was an unlucky burden on him and felt sad about it.

"What are you talking about? What are friends for if not helping when they are in need?" He gave her his brightest smile and then nudged her arm to start running towards the building.

 _Ah yes, friends…_ She swallowed a small sigh and ran with him inside.

The rest of the day went by uneventfully. They were just in time for Adrien to start his presentation and Marinette ogle him as indirectly as she could, forgetting that she had her own presentation to worry about. She had spared so much thought on him, that she hadn't revised her materials since the previous day. Thankfully, she managed just fine with only a couple mistakes, though Chloé did not let them pass by that easily.

So, it was another usual day and Marinette forgot about her crummy morning and went about her day in a pleasant mood thinking about Adrien and their meeting, even when Alya was drilling her with questions during lunch.

"Omg, girl! You came together with Adrien?! And you didn't tell me? Did you plan this? And here I thought you would always just avoid him because you are so shy! When did you do this? I need to know! And how did you do it? Did you call him? Did HE call you? But wait, why would he call you? Actually, did you really do it? Doesn't sound like you." Her barrage of questions never ceased. Marinette tried to wedge an answer among her questions, but she was cut off before even uttering a word. She couldn't help smiling, but her insistence worried her that someone might listen.

"Alya, shhhh! Do you want everyone to know?"

"Know what? That you are an item? Giiirl!"

"What are you talking about?! I wish… but of course not!" she put on her dreamy eyes just for a second just as she pictured herself on a date with Adrien.

"Haha, I'm joking. But I'm still surprised!"

"I realized that when you widened your eyes once we got inside" she smirked.

"How could I not? So tell me!"

"There is nothing to tell, other than him being the perfect gentleman I already knew he was" she swooned around a bit. "I was just waiting the rain out when he saw me and gave me a ride with him."

"Ohhh, still juicy! What did you talk about?"

"I… don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Don't look at me like that! I was just so nervous! He was smiling, so it must have been something good!"

"… You are telling me you rode with him to school and you talked with him, but you can't remember what?" she wore an incredulous look on her face. Marinette didn't know where to look.

"I was so nervous, Alya! Totally unprepared! But it was still the best moment of the year!" Alya shook her head and sighed.

"What are we going to do with you, Marinette?"

"Hold me just before I faint? Do you know how much effort that needs?" she tried to joke. It worked.

"We have to practice for you to be ready next time, silly girl." She smiled and they got up from their table when they heard screaming from outside and felt Tikki moving.

 _Oh no, what is it this time?_


	2. An enemy appears

Adrien was always busy for some time now. It was hard to juggle things among his school, his model job, his distant father, his friends, his lessons at home and above all, his secret identity as Chat Noir. But he didn't mind all that and he might have secrets to keep, but he was used to it by now. No one could ever know his superhero side job and his father could never know how he skipped lessons most of the time, yet his most important secret is something he didn't want to admit to himself.

When the screams were heard outside of the school, Adrien was sitting with Nino and Kim at the courtyard discussing absentmindedly. His first reaction was to get up and look around worried, just like everyone else. He felt Plagg move, but he put his hands over him so he wouldn't get out. Not that he would, since they've been together for a while now, but it strangely calmed him down to directly feel him there too whenever there was something going on.

His second reaction was a tad different to everyone else's, as he felt a slight elation go through his body and he had to suppress a small smile.

"What was that?" asked Nino with a frown, already standing and going towards the door.

"It definitely sounded like people screaming!" Kim ran to the door together with other students.

"Maybe there was an accident or a villain appeared!" Adrien said more to himself rather his friends. More students were gathering to the exit so they could find a window to peek outside, while he walked towards the lockers as inconspicuously as he could.

Of course, Adrien didn't feel any joy over the prospect of someone getting hurt, but this meant it was time for him to transform and that meant it was another chance to meet with Ladybug and spend some time together. He really wanted to see her apart from their adventures, but she always seemed reluctant worrying over their safety and whatnot, so subconsciously he had come to anticipate when something went wrong in the city just to meet her. He almost felt lucky he had the power he had, because it was only Ladybug that could purify the Akuma and of course, that meant she always had to be there when a villain appeared. And he always had to try to be there as well.

Once he arrived at the lockers and made sure no one was there, he took Plagg out who seemed to be surprisingly alert, yet sleepy.

"Is it time to transform?" he asked in his usual laidback way.

"It must be. Plagg, claws out!" leaving Plagg no choice by to comply.

Once he transformed, he smiled to himself in a nearby mirror and escaped through a window.

He climbed and the school building and looked over the city checking out the perimeter to see the cause of the sound. It didn't take him long to see that there were people running 2 blocks away, while others were fighting each other. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, but he was sure it was an akumatized villain behind this. He couldn't find any other reason why so many people would fight each other.

He was peering over the situation, thinking what would be the next best course of action; try and break the fights or try to find the person behind this and stop them?

"Aww, man. Why are there only tough choices?" he whispered out loud.

"Because that's a superhero's job. Wouldn't you agree?" Adrien jumped as Ladybug suddenly appeared next to him as beautiful as ever.

"My lady! I didn't see you there." He flashed her his most impressive smile. "I would like to think a superhero has all the answers, but I am starting to lose faith!" he put his hands over his heart.

"Silly cat, if you lose faith, what am I to do on my own?" she smiled and jumped to another building without waiting for him to answer. He felt like giving his life for her if it was needed, but he didn't know how to express that properly, so maybe it was a good thing she left first. He soon followed her like always.

Marinette on the other hand, didn't feel as happy as Adrien did, simply because she always felt the danger every time an akumatized villain appeared. Albeit her morning seemed to inconsequential compared to this, she kept thinking that her day was not going so well. If it wasn't for Adrien picking her up from the streets, she might have left school early. Even before escaping Alya's gaze and transform, she managed to trip herself up and fall on her face.

She really didn't want to think of those petty things, so she decided to deal with the Akuma as fast as possible and return to school and pretend nothing happened and try to spend more time with Adrien. Well, the last one was a mere hope of hers, but it made her day a bit brighter.

"My lady, do you have a plan?" He woke her from her trance and glanced at him as she stood on the building directly above the battle that seemed to be heating up. She looked around the street for some hint as to what they should do next.

"Hmmm, there!" she pointed with her finger. "See how more people fight in that specific direction? It's like someone went through this street and made them fight. The villain must have passed through here."

"Then, it's time for this cat to spring into action. Please sit back while I do the search for you."

"Such a gentleman, but we have no time to waste." She looked at the people underneath. "They are not attacking each other heavily, but who knows when that might change?"

"Ah, you wound me with your infallible logic, my Ladybug." She smiled and he felt that was a win.

They both jumped and followed the growing number of people fighting. They could hear arguing at the same time.

"Did you always think I'm annoying and without sense of fashion?!" an angry woman shouted at another woman while trying to get a hold of her hair.

"Yes! If only you could hear yourself sometimes! It's embarrassing to go out with you!"

"I always believed you were a bad influence!" a man further away said.

"You don't like my food?!"

"Why am I still friends with you?"

"What are they really talking about?" Adrien wondered.

"It seems like they have personal grudges?" Marinette offered an idea.

"And so violent! You'd never hurt me like that, would you?" he fluttered his eyes in mid-air.

"It depends." she smiled.

"On what?" he tried to sound offended.

"On what the kitty did wrong." she winked and stopped once a figure walking briskly among angered people caught her eye. "Look there! That must be the villain!"

"Ah, getting in the way of our conversation. Maybe it's time to do something right so you will give me a reward!" Adrien thought that if he proposed something enough times in various instances, she would fall for one of them sooner or later. Time and time again, it was proven it was going to be later, but he never gave up.

"Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you?"

"C'mon, if you just promise me that I can buy you ice cream after this, I will deal with this faster than ever!"

"And if I don't? You'll sit back? Chat Noir, that is unexpected!"

"Of course, I'll help you out, but your lo-, attention gives me wings!" He did try to not lay it thick, but the balance was hard to find. She giggled, but soon snapped into attention looking over at the mess in front of them.

"You should focus elsewhere for now, little cat" she jumped towards the villain.

"But do you promise?" he shouted from behind. "Just a teeny tiny cone?"

Marinette had only a split second to think about it before reaching her objective and despite Chat Noir's usual nagging, he could always cheer her up if he wanted to and she felt a bit down today. She answered positively without much thought evidently, because a nanosecond later she regretted her decision thinking of wasting more time away from Adrien.

 _Riding his car seems so far away now._ She thought absentmindedly while Chat Noir was doing a victory dance behind her. She could never understand his persistence.

"Who do we have here?" a strange voice asked her as she touched the ground.

"The real question is who are you!" answered Marinette. The figure in front of her seemed to be of a woman's dressed in gray holding a gray staff and with an extravagant hair style, just like every other villain they met. At least this one did not transform into anything.

"I am Candor and I serve the truth." she said calmly.

"The truth? How did you make the people fight then?"

"I didn't make them do anything. How dare you!"

"Problem, m'lady?" Adrien appeared next to her although crouching on a lamp post, more ramped up from before, if that was possible. It was of course, since he had managed to set a date with Ladybug.

"She seems quite angry." Marinette whispered to him.

"I am not angry, I am offended! I only serve the truth and to imply I had some other goal is reprehensible." Candor said in a dignified manner. She didn't really seem all that aggressive either, which made Marinette falter a bit.

"Er, o-ok." she stammered and looked behind at the growing number of people arguing quite violently and then back at her. She wasn't used to such calm conversations or any conversations for that matter as most villains went on about their thing and she had to run behind them to stop them.

"Did the cat bite your tongue?" smirked Chat Noir and looked over at Candor. "If you serve truth, then answer truthfully as to how these people suddenly started fighting each other."

Candor flipped her hair behind her shoulder and put her arm on her waist.

"I merely encouraged them to be as honest as myself. This world is full of liars and traitors and it is high time people stop hiding behind their finger!" Anger flashed in her eyes, but it passed as quickly as it came.

"That's why they are fighting? Because of the truth?" Adrien was in disbelief. He expected some devious plan, but this seemed to be much simpler.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would they fight if people were just saying the truth?" Marinette was confused, as well and Candor seemed to be honest herself.

"YOU SAID YOU'D KEEP MY SECRET. WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?"

"So, it was YOU who stole my card?!"

"LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE"

Various shouts could be heard from everywhere and Marinette slowly realized that it wasn't just the truth that made them angry, it was the involuntary urge to spill secret thoughts. Those may be the truth, but it was basically an attack on their innermost thoughts and people lashed out after having to say and hear things they didn't want.

"That's because humans are sneaky creatures who always try to hide the truth. BUT NOT ANYMORE. Now everyone will say what they truly think and know and will have honest relationships! Is there anything more to ask for?" she spread her arms to the sky.

"What you are doing isn't an honest act" said Ladybug. "You are not encouraging them to be honest with themselves and others, but to divulge their every thought!"

Candor lowered her arms and was serious again.

"I see you are one of them, as well. Too bad." And before Marinette or Adrien could react, she raised her staff and zapped her.


	3. A mistake

How did this happen? How did he let this happen? Why didn't he see it coming? He had let his guard down and this is what happened! Adrien kept asking himself the same questions and accusing his lack of attention in the span of the few seconds it took him to get down from the lamp post and hold Ladybug in his arms. It wasn't the first time either of them was attacked, but it never became easier and this time she was unconscious. His precious Ladybug was limp in his arms. He felt anger rise up in him.

"What did you do to her?!" he snarled like a feral cat to Candor. She wasn't intimidated and instead she flipped her hair again and smiled stiffly.

"The same thing I did to everyone else and the same thing I'm going to do to you too if you are a liar like her!" she raised her staff calmly and aimed at him without doing anything. Not that he would let her this time. He might have dulled his senses, because Ladybug was having a conversation with her, but he would be ready this time.

"Hold on, my Ladybug!"

Before Candor raised her staff completely, he had taken Ladybug in his arms like a princess and jumped on the roof of a nearby building. Candor didn't seem all that interested in following them and continued aiming at any passerby that hadn't escaped yet.

Considering everyone else attacked by her staff seemed to be alive and well, he already felt relief that she would wake up soon. On the other hand, the thought of her attacking him like the other victims made the pit of his stomach feel like it was in knots. He wasn't even sure how to wake the people up other than purifying Candor right away, so the last thing he wanted was for everyone to turn crazy without any salvation.

"Ladybug? Wake up, my lady! Are you ok?!" his worried voice came in a pitched tone almost. He still held her in his hands and started shaking her lightly to no avail. "Awww, don't do this to me, partner! We are a team, don't leave me alone to fight!" he made little sense to himself, but he wanted to try everything out in case she woke up. "I'll even buy you 2 ice creams if you wake up right now!"

Marinette's eyelids wavered a bit and she started hearing Chat Noir's voice from afar. She didn't feel any pain, but a sense of dizziness that was hard to pinpoint. She heard him mention the ice cream and wanted to smile, but felt a bit too dizzy still.

"Are you waking up? Maybe a kiss can do the trick? That's how they wake princesses up in fairytales!" and he leaned in. Marinette's mind was already clear enough to process his words properly and managed to open her eyes up fast enough as he was directly above him. "MY LADY! You are awake! Did you want to kiss me that much that you woke up?" he smiled and tried to kiss her in a more dramatic fashion.

She pushed him away and got up a bit wobbly at first, but found her balance soon after.

"Yuck!" came out of her mouth.

"Ouch! That hurts." He wiped a fake tear from his face. He was used to this kind of treatment, but it always stung him a tiny bit. Especially now that she was supposedly under the influence of Candor. "Are you feeling ok? Anywhere hurt? Pain? Any sudden urge to attack me?" he showered her with questions.

"I think I'm fine. I was feeling dizzy but that passed. I don't think anything changed." She made a full turn with her body checking herself, but she really didn't feel anything different.

"That must be the truth if you are saying so! You are as honest as me now!" he grinned and put his hands on his waist.

"As if I would ever be like you!" she shot back before she realized it. She gasped at herself and put her hands on her mouth.

"Maybe this is the urge to attack me…" His cat ears drooped a bit, along with his face.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that…" She was still a bit surprised, but she realized soon enough whose fault that was. "So this is Candor's power. I think it amplifies any thought someone might have. I'm pretty sure I didn't feel like that!"

"Are you reaa~lly sure though? It might just be your honest side!" he said in the same tone.

"It just might be!" she scoffed. "No, I mean- no!" She always thought Chat Noir could be a bit annoying, especially when he was trying to brag, but she was fairly certain it didn't bother her that much since she knew how dependable he was and how he always tried to make her smile. Could it be otherwise?

"I might just believe you for now, because we have to find Candor and get it done! More people have turned and I don't want you to verbally attack me!" he sighed dramatically.

"Of course you want me to do other things to you… Err… no!" Marinette was confused at her own words. Were those really her thoughts? She couldn't even control her own mouth. She looked at Chat Noir who seemed to gape at her. "L-let's get a move on!" she said and jumped before he said something else and then she would have to reply back.

Adrien on the other hand had an epiphany that moment. He realized that Ladybug could only answer truthfully and without hiding anything. It seemed obvious of course, but he hadn't really thought before how he could use that for his own benefit. Of course, he was tempted to ask a lot of things, such as the boy she liked or even better who she truly was, but he didn't want to invade her privacy that way; she would never forgive him and he would probably not be able to forgive himself after that. But everything else should be ok! Maybe a hint or two or her feelings towards him. Though, she had made it abundantly clear she only saw him as a friend, maybe he could confirm it today and maybe learn what was so great about the guy she liked so much. He wouldn't stoop to mimicking an invisible enemy, but would it hurt?

He followed her thinking what he could ask and how much time they would have to be able to ask her. It had to be before they defeated Candor and Ladybug seemed alert. He caught up to her behind a bus that was near Candor.

"So, my lady, I was wondering… what do you like in a guy?" He gave her a mischievous grin landing next to her.

"What are you talking about? … He must be nice and kind and sensitive! Smiling kindly to others and– What are you making me say?!" she looked horrified blushing to her ears, but he couldn't help feeling he won somehow. "We have a job to do, Chat Noir! Stop playing!" she averted her eyes and tried to ignore him.

Marinette wasn't hiding the fact that she had a crush, but she didn't want to openly talk about it to Chat Noir! Of course, he wasn't asking her directly about him, but she would inadvertently think of him when asked such questions. Adrien was everything she could like in someone and he had every quality to the brim. And to divulge those details so easily to someone else like that… Impossible! And that insufferable cat seemed to enjoy tormenting her! If only she could control her mouth!

"Right-o!" he nodded. "But let me ask you first, does the guy you like have all that?" he asked with a smile, but underneath that there was some discomfort. After all, he was asking her about his own rival. Knowledge is power, they say, but ignorance can be bliss too.

"Chat Noir!" she snapped towards him loud enough for Candor to turn their direction. "Undoubtedly, he is the best person I've ever known! ARGHH" she put her hand over her mouth and pushed him away with the other. "What are you doing?" she asked in a muffled voice.

"I can't help it, my lady! It's a chance in a million!"

"Look who is back. Are we being honest now?" Candor was right next to them giving them again that false sense of security, but they weren't going to fall for it again. Chat Noir tried to trip her with his own staff, but she dodged, while Ladybug used her yo-yo to catch her, but she seemed a bit too fast. "Why are you against the truth?! Why do you prefer to be liars?!" she shouted and aimed the staff at them trying to zap them to no avail. She then made the people around her attack them first with their words and then with their own hands.

Candor managed to bring out any negative thought they might have had over Ladybug and Chat Noir such as vague jealousy over their powers or the popularity they had. So, the people insulted them and tried to fight them.

"This is definitely not going well" Adrien exclaimed as they climbed another lamp post.

"You think?" Marinette snapped back and feeling sure this time that was her honest thought.

The rest of the fight went as it usually goes. They tried to get her while avoiding the masses and Marinette tried to avoid Chat Noir too, because he seemed eager to ask for more. He heard him say the word "boy" again, but it was lost under the cacophony of everyone's shouts and she couldn't be happier about it, because that meant she didn't have to answer. This day really wanted to see her on the floor in exchange for her meeting with Adrien, as it seems.

 _How could it get worse than this?_ She thought.

Adrien felt a bit disappointed that he couldn't ask Ladybug more things, but at the same time relieved he wouldn't have to hear the answers. He had almost asked her how the guy she liked looked like. Yikes! Love can be so complicated.

Instead, he helped his favorite partner corner Candor at an almost deserted street, which had a couple of people back to arguing with each other and didn't give them much thought. Using her Lucky Charm as fast as possible once Candor was outmaneuvered, she was ready to purify the Akuma inside of the woman. It all happened so fast that he couldn't process the fact that his only chance of learning something more about her was slipping through his fingers.

"Ladybug!" he cried. She looked at him with a weary face. He ached to ask her something personal, but he knew he couldn't do it. "Nothing…" he mumbled.

He was trying to give up on the idea when a Candor's victim appeared out of nowhere and knocked Ladybug down while she was purifying the dark butterfly. The victim fell down on his own after that and Adrien rushed to her as it seemed she might have hit her head.

"Are you ok, Ladybug?!" he asked her once more for one day. She seemed half-awake and he helped her sit up. He checked at the lucky charm which was still purifying the butterfly.

 _Maybe it doesn't work if Ladybug isn't there to do it herself to the end._

"I'm ok… is what I would say if I hadn't hit the ground too many times today..." she snapped at him in dazed state, but her voice seemed forced. He chuckled at her response. It was refreshing to have his fellow cute superhero grumble so much for a day.

"I guess that's true. Time to finish this off!" He held her and was about to help her up when the bickering of a pair a bit further away that was dying out could be heard.

"How could you say this to me… Wait, who are you?" a tired voice said to another.

"Who am I…?" Marinette asked with her eyes half-closed. There was a dull pain at the back of her head that was getting worse. "I'm Marine–" she managed to say before she fainted.


	4. Realization 1

_**Author's note:** Thank you for the reviews :) I had a feeling that after chapter 3, I'd get a couple! Keep them coming and hopefully you'll keep enjoying this._

 _As a note, to answer a guest's review! Yes, I know that it's "Cat Noir", but the French version "Chat Noir" just sounds better, that's why I went with it. Just personal preference! :D_

* * *

Adrien's life may not have been the easiest because of his controlling dad, but slowly he was accumulating a lot of first experiences such as going to a school of his own choice and hanging out with friends. Having a crush was also a novelty for him, though the object of his affection was certainly not a common one, since he didn't know the girl behind the mask and apart from her obvious traits when they worked together (such as bravery, ingenuity, fearlessness and the list could go on and on), he didn't know much more about her. He always acted goofy around her which was a combination of awkwardness, newfound freedom and lack of social practice.

He always wished he could know more and he had come many times close to giving up the secrecy and finding out who she was, but she trusted him just as much as he trusted her with his life (which she had saved numerous times as Chat Noir and even as Adrien), so underneath his urges, he had almost come to terms with the fact that he wouldn't get to meet her outside the suit for a long while. He was vague about it thinking that at some point they will meet and until then, he would woo her, she would come to like him and they would be together. He had no concrete picture of them together, but he had always hoped so for one day, even when he was told she only valued him as a friend and had given her heart elsewhere.

So, when Ladybug fainted while speaking, he didn't register immediately the words she said before it happened. He focused on her eyelids that closed and the head that fell back and got immediately worried. She had fainted when Candor had zapped her, but that was just the aftereffect and physically she was fine. This time she was hurt and he was worried over her health, as well as her transformation disappearing since she had already used her Lucky Charm and that meant she had only a few minutes before she changed back to her everyday self. He didn't want to betray her trust, so he thought the next best thing he could do; purify the Akuma himself through her. He was sure the damage she had received would be gone once the purification took place and everything would be like before.

The Akuma was already in the Lucky Charm so he just took her hands and moved them as she always did to try to at least replicate the steps. With her like that it wasn't easy, but he has a Miraculous too, he surely could do it with some help! Albeit saying this to himself, he was surprised it actually worked in the end. The butterfly flew out and it was shiny as it should have been and he witnessed the transformation of the city around him with people getting back to where they should have been and order at the streets.

When he looked at Ladybug in his arms while waiting for her to wake up, he realized he had felt a strange pull in his suit when he had helped her purify the Akuma. It wasn't something he had happened previously and assumed that it must have been the purification since it wasn't something he had done before, but that led him replay the scene in his mind from the moment she fainted. That was when he remembered that Ladybug had uttered some very heavy words.

He tried to bring to memory the scene a bit better: She had hit her head, he was helping her, some people were arguing… What did they people say? He paid them no mind then since it was common occurrence to listen to fighting the past hour, but Ladybug… had responded to them, hadn't she? A woman was shouting and then asked the other something… _'Who are you?'_ Candor's effect must have been dissolving by then.

A jolt passed through his entire body. It only took a couple of seconds while he was piecing the scene together and right at his realization, Ladybug got back to normal and was standing in front of him.

"Woah, what happened? Is everything ok, Chat Noir?" she looked a bit disoriented around her touching her head remembering and then noticed Chat Noir sitting down with a very surprised face.

"Eh?" he said instinctively looking at her but overwhelmed by his thoughts. What had she answered? _'Who am I…?'_

"Are you ok? You seem out of it." She peered over his head and checked out the city. "I see everything is back in order and I feel great, you must have had a hand in it? I don't remember purifying the Akuma." At that moment she felt her earing beep with 2 spots only. "Oh!"

"You don't remember?" he said getting his wits slowly back and getting on his feet. "You… don't remember fainting either?"

"I fainted? I think I do? But it's a bit fuzzy" she brought her brows together in thought. "But all's well that ends well. The kitty was a great help today, as I see it, and Heaven knows how much I needed it today…" she said lowering her voice more once she reached the end of the sentence thinking her day once more. Her earring beeped with 1 spot. "Time to go, Chat Noir! Thank you very much for today!" She gave him one of her best smiles and prepared her yo-yo to leave.

"Wait!" he grabbed her arm. "You really don't remember anything?" he asked her with some concealed fervor. _'I'm…'_

"Remember what? I remember when Candor zapped me and saying some things… But did I do something?" she panicked thinking the time she had to kiss him and he had woken up remembering absolutely nothing. Had she done something irreversible?

"Uhh, nothing…" he seemed thoughtful and then brightened up. "I meant if you remember your promise about grabbing an ice cream after this!" he elbowed gently trying to lighten the mood.

"Ah! You are right!" Marinette nodded. "But I can't right now" she said pointing to her earring. "I'll have to take a raincheck on that. But a promise is a promise! Next time we meet we'll set the day and time!" She smiled with a wink and took off without waiting a reply since the beeping got stronger. She only had a few seconds left before transforming back most probably.

He didn't stop her this time and once she left, his smile dropped down a notch and kept staring at the direction she left.

' _I'm Marine–'_

–tte?


	5. Realization 2

Could he have heard wrong? Ladybug was saying a name, HER name before she fainted, she must have! But was that name what he really thought it was? Marine… Maybe it was just Marine? Or maybe he heard it wrong and it was Marielle? Or Mariette? It could be, but he didn't know anyone named like that and what a coincidence it could have been. But could it really be Marinette? His classmate? His good friend? HIS FAN?

Adrien hadn't changed back and was wandering around as Chat Noir, because he wanted to think and needed air. Thankfully, he hadn't used his Cataclysm this time around, so he currently had no time limit. He kept mulling over this new information, which he never thought he would acquire this way while jumping from building to building, finally landing at the Eiffel tower and hid at the top before anyone could see him. He needed some time alone and tried to ignore the fact that he should return to school soon.

Marinette was very clumsy as far as he knew and it was something he found cute, but could she really be the one making all those superhero actions that require flexibility, balance and precision? Then again, he was also able to do things he could never do without his Miraculous, so would it really be impossible?

 _Wait, my Miraculous! Plagg has seen who Ladybug is that time with the Dark Owl. He knows who she is, he can confirm it for me._

He almost changed back right then, but he remembered he was at the top of the tower and unless he had a death wish, he should probably get off first. He quickly climbed down and was about to find a hidden or discreet corner to change back when he happened to see the real Marinette walking by. He froze in place and followed her with his eyes for a few seconds before running after her, postponing his plans.

Marinette had already returned to school after the whole Candor incident, but as it was, they were told to leave early, because of what happened. It was a bit unusual since nowadays akumatized victims were almost the norm and they didn't miss school anymore, but she had no problem with it. She wanted to go back home and rest a bit since she had gotten a light headache after fainting. She tried taking a glimpse at Adrien, but he couldn't see him anywhere so she gave up and went home after saying her goodbyes to her friends.

She was taking a detour home because she had to buy some ingredients for dinner, when she heard a voice right behind her that made her jump surprised.

"Princess!" She turned to see Chat Noir almost right on her face smiling.

"Ch-Chat Noir?" she gasped. She may be used to him as Ladybug, but she was genuinely surprised to see him as Marinette and without any obvious reason. And what was he still doing like that? It's been half an hour since they parted, he should have transformed back.

"Hello, hello! It is I, Chat Noir, your favorite neighborhood superhero." He flexed his right arm.

Adrien felt kind of silly doing this, but what else could he do than try striking up a normal conversation with her? He couldn't outright ask her if she was Ladybug and unless he was ready to give up his secret, she wouldn't tell him either way. And he wasn't ready, at least not yet, not before he knew for certain if he was right. But on the other hand, he felt he should get closer one way or another.

"Those are some big words. Are you sure they are true?" she relaxed and smiled.

"How can they not? Am I not your favorite?" he looked at her with a dejected expression.

"Well…" she put her finger on her mouth and pretended to think about it.

"You wound me, princess! How could you treat the person who protected you like this?" he took a dramatic step back.

"Haha, who knows." She gave him a mysterious smile. "But why did you call me out now? Is something amiss?" She looked around looking for a threat, but only saw people walking by and some looking at them while pointing and giggling. At Chat Noir, of course.

"Oh, nothing. I was just doing my civic duty as this city's protector and saw you passing by." He vaguely said avoiding her eyes.

"You interrupted your important civic duty for me? That's my honor!" she joked back at him. But she knew he had no plans for that. They had made plans for ice cream. Maybe he was feeling sad over that like last time with the dinner? But she had been straight with him!

"Do I sense sarcasm?"

"I would never." she giggled trying not to feel guilty over it.

 _Did that sound like Ladybug?_ It kinda did, but…

"Shouldn't you be at school at this time?" he asked her searching for hints.

"They let us off early because of the trouble. Um, you dealt with it with Ladybug, right?"

"Ah yes, another day, another villain." He smiled although it did not reach his ears. None of them was enjoying the fight with innocent people when they person behind all this was safely hidden away and Marinette knew his pain.

"I can see you saved the city once again. It is my civic duty to thank you." She tried to cheer him up a bit. He had done it before for her too, even if he didn't know it was her.

"Well, thank you, princess." He bowed and kissed her hand before she could take it away. "Let me ask you though, if it is not me who is your favorite superhero, could it be Ladybug then?" He wasn't sure where this question could lead, but maybe he could see something in her reactions.

"Hmm, I suppose I do admire her." She admitted shyly. It was her, but it was a different her and sometimes she was in awe at the things she could do. Chat Noir was looking at her intently. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh no." he waved his staff which was still in his hands and trying to find an excuse. "I'm just trying to accept how little you care for me!" he wiped an invisible tear and hiding his face in his hands.

"What are you saying?" she gasped for a second, but then thought better of it. "…Are you fishing for compliments?"

He fake sobbed for a couple of seconds before stopping and opening his hands to show his face. "Was I caught?"

She shook her head trying to appear serious but it was hard holding her laughter. She really appreciated Chat Noir's chattiness and he somehow always managed to make her feel better one way or another. Then she thought again of that night they shared a heartfelt conversation. She had confessed to him about her heartbreak and in turn he did the same, without knowing she was the cause of it. It was the first time she fully understood how serious he had been.

"Is everything ok with Ladybug?" she tried asking quietly, thinking she may extract his emotional state. She would hate to be the reason for any kind of sadness for him again.

"What do you mean?" He looked at her intently again without a smile.

"Ah… I didn't mean something specifically. I was just… thinking the last time we talked on my balcony and was wondering how you were." She darted her eyes from his face to the ground and fiddled with her fingers, while she felt her cheeks get warm a bit.

"Last time?" he asked, but then he was assaulted by the memories of it. He was down in the dumps and was talking with Marinette who was also feeling blue. He told her about his broken heart by Ladybug and she had shared her own story with her crush. She had said he had like an unrequited love for a boy. Was it a coincidence? "Who do you like?" he blurted out without realizing it, until it was too late.

"What?!" Her face got red and looked at him like he was an alien.

"Err, no." He tried taking it back, but what could he say? She didn't know Ladybug's crush, but maybe if she knew Marinette's and if they were the same person… Then he realized that Marinette already knew of his crush with Ladybug. He had told her everything and she had consoled him. What if she was Ladybug and he had really told her everything?! His love wasn't a secret, but confessing his hurt feelings like that to the person involved without him knowing was extremely embarrassing.

He suddenly blushed everywhere on his face and started stuttering some incoherent words, before saying "I'm sorry, I have to go." And left just as he came.

 _What could be wrong with him? And why on earth did he ask me that?_

She waved her hands towards her face to drive away the blushing and hurried back home.

Adrien hurried back to his own home, as well, after a short stop at the school to pick his things up (he would have to find an excuse for Nino tomorrow for his disappearance), all the while thinking how stupid he was for acting like that. What would she think of him now? And why did he care so much? He liked Ladybug, but did that mean he liked Marinette as well if it was truly her? He was so confused not knowing which way was up or down.

He transformed outside his house discreetly, because his dad might know if he never came through from the main door and rushed to his room without anyone stopping him thankfully. He sent a text to his bodyguard that he got home sooner because of school ending early so he wouldn't worry once he wouldn't find him outside and locked the door.

"Ok, I know you know everything and I know you saw what happened today. So tell me, is Ladybug Marinette?" he took out Plagg who was half-sleeping and held him in his palms staring at him.

Plagg yawned and answered in his usual relaxed tone, although a bit more seriously. "You know I can't get involved in such matters, Adrien. If you have to ask me, it means you don't know and I can't provide any answer."

"But Plagg! I know! Or at least I think I know! You can just say yes or no, you aren't revealing anything new!" he shook him a bit.

"My answer is still no. I'm sworn to secrecy." He said in a sadder tone. Adrien knew his friend wanted to help him, but it wasn't something he'd risk.

"C'mon, Plagg. This is serious. I'm only asking for a yes or a no. You've seen Ladybug's true identity!" he pleaded.

"…I'm sorry." He smiled sadly.

Adrien took a deep breath, wondering how he could divulge something out of him.

"Ok… I will only ask once more. You can say yes or no or you can stay silent. Is Ladybug truly Marinette?" he asked him seriously looking intently into his eyes without blinking.

Plagg stayed silent as he returned the stare.

And that was all Adrien needed for a confirmation.

"Thank you, Plagg." He let him rest on a pillow and gave him some Camembert.


	6. The start of the hunt

Marinette's luck seemed to have turned out for the better the next day. It was a Saturday and had made no prior plans, but as it turned out, plans were already made for her. Rose had invited a few students from the class for a picnic at a new park and Adrien would be there! What other reason did she need to believe her day was looking up? She was going to see him on a Saturday! It almost felt fair that her previous day was this unlucky, except of course her coincidental meeting with Adrien. Maybe he was her lucky charm.

She giggled to herself.

"You're way happier than yesterday" noted Tikki smiling. "I wish you were able to see Adrien everyday if it meant you would be happy like this!"

"Does it show that much on my face?" She had the brightest of smiles on her face. "I should be careful!" she muttered to herself and finished the final touches to her hair. "In we go!" she told Tikki pointing to her bag. She hid without any objection.

"Have fun today and try to talk to Adrien as much as possible!" she said before nodding off.

"I'll try…" Marinette sighed thinking how much he would stumble on her words and she left the house.

She was going to take the bus, but was stunned to see that Adrien's car, a limo, was outside. _Could he be waiting for me? That has never happened before. Is it a dream?_ Just then, the window came down and she saw… Alya's face. _Yup, definitely a dream._ She shook her head and was wondering if her day had started at all or she had dreamt up the whole excursion.

"Marinette! What are you waiting for? Come in!" Alya said beckoning towards her. Marinette was ready to pinch herself awake, when she looked more carefully and saw the rest of her classmates behind Alya and among them there was Adrien smiling at her (and Chloé next to him, but she tried ignoring that).

"Um, hello?" she tried.

"Hello to you too, now come in!" Alya smirked at her and opened the door. Marinette moved closer to the door, almost as if she expected the car to swallow her up or attack her. Alya didn't wait for her though and grabbed her hand pushing her inside. "You're moving too slowly, girl." She made her sit next to Adrien's other side which was occupied by Alya herself before. "There, now sit comfortably." She smiled and she sat next to Nino. Sometimes Marinette really loved her best friend.

"Thank you." She felt grateful to her and then looked at everyone else. "Good morning, everyone!"

Inside the car there were 7 people; Marinete, Alya, Adrien, Chloé, Rose, Nino and Juleka. The rest couldn't make it, but she was greeted warmly by all of them, except Chloé who was her usual self.

"What took you so long? You should have been grateful that Adrien deigned picking you up." she said in her usual annoying voice. Marinette chose not to answer, but she thought Chloé was half-right since they were waiting for her.

She turned her face to Adrien to express gratitude and apologize for her lateness since she didn't even know he was planning to pick everyone up, but just as she did, the words were caught in her throat. She wasn't usually eloquent when he was around, but this time she felt her heart jump outside of her chest, because he was already looking at her and his face was so close.

"Err… hillo!" she managed, realizing too late she was mixing up her words again and felt her cheeks warming up.

"Hillo, Marinette." Adrien smiled kindly at her, like always. Though, she thought he was focusing more than usual. She waved her hand awkwardly.

"Th-thank you for picking me up. I'm sorry for being late! I didn't know you would come by." she mumbled the best she could, her eyes wanting to escape his gaze.

"No problem, my pleasure. Alya suggested to surprise you, so don't worry." he reassured her. Marinette looked at Alya, who winked back at her. She loved her best friend, but sometimes wanting to kill her was also an option.

"How come you used your car?" she asked trying to control her voice from sounding weird.

"Obviously because Adrien is really nice, though he had no need to pick you up, after meeting with me" intervened Chloé. Adrien just smiled.

Little did anyone know that behind this venture was himself and not really Rose. He was messaging Nino about this new park and Nino told Alya who happened to be with Rose on an errand yesterday evening and Rose decided to act upon it. Of course, he hadn't planned for this to happen, but he was hoping that after mentioning the park enough times, Nino would offer to go there as a group. In the end, it was Rose who did it, but he didn't mind at all. He just wanted an excuse to observe Marinette more.

He was already almost convinced she was Ladybug with Plagg's silence. He believed he knew his friend well enough to know what his silences really meant. Then again, it could be wishful thinking, but he had never wished Marinette was her so he had no reason to suddenly do it now. He just knew it was like that and if it was, he had to gather more information about her and he couldn't wait until he met her as Ladybug. The hard part was doing it without giving too much attention to himself. Marinette was his friend and if he suddenly started asking her too many things, she might catch on.

 _Though, would that be so bad?_

He wasn't sure how to answer this, but ever since he was sure (or, as sure as he could be) that it was her, he wanted to know more as Adrien and as Chat Noir and his mind kept circling back to the same topic; Ladybug and Marinette had told him they liked someone. Who could that be? It was bad enough that Ladybug had told him to never reveal their identities and he now knew, it would be even worse to get rejected by seemingly 2 people. He had to find out more.

What had Ladybug said? Nice, kind, sensitive and smiling kindly to others… the best person she had ever known. And Marinette had confessed to him that her heart was broken. Was she rejected? No, Marinette had said he didn't know, but how could he not? If he was so kind and sensitive, wouldn't he have noticed? Was he maybe rejecting her indirectly? Or playing with her?

"Definitely not the best person." he murmured to himself absentmindedly.

"Did you say something, Adrien?" Marinette asked him hesitantly. He looked up back at her from his thoughts bewildered at first, but then he laughed.

"I was just thinking something, don't mind me." He ran one of his hands through his hair.

"Probably thinking how many people we are here… I told you, you should have let them take the bus" grumbled Chloé.

"It's fine, Chloé. I wanted to do this so we would be comfortable." He tried calming down his oldest friend, albeit he was worried over her being there. She didn't really get along with the rest and Sabrina wasn't with her to keep her company.

"You don't have to suffer anymore with us, Chloé" Alya chirped. "We have arrived!" She pointed outside the window to the seemingly vast expanse of the park. It was full of greenery, trees and flowers and little pathways with benches along the way. They could see a lake on one side and gazeebos further away, among other things.

"It looks beautiful" Marinette's eyes shone and Adrien agreed, although he was looking at her eyes instead of the park. He caught himself doing that and blushed. No one was watching him though, so he was at least safe.

Once they got out of the car and took their picnic equipment with them, they strolled around the park, admiring the view and looked for a nice place with a shade to set up their things.

Marinette was walking along Alya, Rose and Juleka and having a fun conversation, though half of it was them teasing her about Adrien and thinking up plans of how to get them together. She really appreciated the help, even though it was exaggerated and was worried he might hear them. The 3 of them were walking a couple steps in front of them to the left, so she stole some glances at him. She only looked for the shortest of time possible, but she could swear he could see him lookingback at her. Was it her idea or did he know that she was looking at him specifically?

They chose a place and started setting up the cloth and the food, except of course Chloé who had brought with her a foldable chair and had made Nino carry it around and was now sitting on it giving orders. Everyone knew better than to give in to their urges and shout at her, because it wouldn't end well, but they were also sure they would be reaching the point of no return sooner or later. Thankfully, Adrien could diffuse the situation some.

"You know, Chloé, you could be helping us instead of just sitting there and complaining. You wanted to come along, didn't you?" he asked her calmly.

"I wanted to come along with YOU, not them." She waved her arm towards the others and got some stares back.

"Don't be like that, Chloé. We are all friends here. You should enjoy it." He smiled, although he felt a bit bad.

"I don't know how he can put up with her." Alya commented quietly to the girls who were setting up the food and beverages currently.

"He must have practiced patience since they are childhood friends." Rose replied.

"But she is really rude!" Marinette groaned unboxing the cookies she had baked herself the day before with her mother. "She is always sticking to him and tries to play it off nice in front of him, except if it's about us. Ugh, did she really have to come?" she continued grumbling. She didn't like badmouthing anyone, but she didn't know any other person as deserving of it as Chloé Bourgeois. She refused to let her ruin their day, but it was hard ignoring her every word.

After everything was ready and they were about to sit down, Marinette and her friends didn't even have to try helping her sit next to Adrien, because he came on his own accord and sat close to where Marinette was. She sat at the spot she was standing feeling a bit numb and blessing her luck for the various gifts that day. She would never expect for them to go somewhere together out of the blue or him waiting for her with his car and sitting next to him not once, but twice. She decided that if her luck was being so generous to her, she had to be more proactive.

"Would like to try um, some of the cookies I made?" he asked him showing him the bowl after cheering herself in her mind.

"You made them? Of course I will try some!" he exclaimed and ate one right away and Marinette felt like she was floating. "They are great! Did you make them on your own?"

"Yes! Well, my mother was there, but she was just making sure I did everything right, she didn't help me bake them, so yes!" she rambled more than she had expected to, but he didn't seem put off. He never did actually, so she was never sure if he really didn't mind or was used to hide his annoyance through practice in his model job.

"They are great! You really are a baker's daughter" he praised her and grabbed another cookie.

"Oh, thank you!" she beamed at him. She wanted to continue the conversation, but had no idea how, so she said the first thing that came to mind that might sound interesting. "You know, yesterday after school I happened to meet Chat Noir."

Adrien choked on the cookie.

"Are you ok? Was it the cookie?" gasped Marinette and fetched a glass of water. "Here!" He took it and drank from it.

"Thank you" his voice was a bit rasped. "I'm sorry, I choke by accident, my fault" he apologized to her.

Adrien didn't expect her to say that at all. It was disconcerting how he was trying to figure out more about her using both his identities, only for that to be used as conversation towards himself. He remembered the conversation and was fighting back the urge of blushing. It didn't help that Marinette was looking at him all worried with those big eyes of hers. But he was curious. Would Ladybug talk about him as Marinette? It seemed so weird.

"So, you were saying?"

"Ah, nothing much, just that I met Chat Noir yesterday after that new villain was dealt with." She spoke fast.

"Really? He was alone? And what did he want?"

"Yeah, he was alone. I think he was boasting about himself most of the time" she answered thoughtfully. "He seems to do that a lot" she laughed.

"Haha… really?" he laughed awkwardly.

"But I like him!"

"You do?" he snapped his head towards her, though she didn't seem to notice, as she was looking in front of her.

"Yes, he seems a genuinely nice person, though vain." She stated matter-of-factly.

"You seem to know him pretty well."

"Hmm, we have met a couple of times, I suppose." She answered truthfully, but she didn't want to go into details. Chat Noir had trusted her after all.

"I didn't know you were such friends."

"Haha, we aren't, but he does save our city so he is cool." She admitted. "Of course, you are cooler!" she squealed. She didn't want him to think she liked Chat more than him. He just chuckled.

"Thank you. And was that all you talked about?" he was curious to see how much she would say about him.

"Um, I guess? He had to leave and it was just a random meeting at the street." She concluded.

"I see" and he did and he smiled to himself. But that still didn't give him any way to find out who she truly liked. Except if it was truly Chat Noir, but her face seemed impassive at the mention of his superhero name. Was she that good at hiding her feelings? But if she did like him, wouldn't Ladybug accept his advances? She had rejected him. Did that mean they weren't the same person?

This whole situation was playing with his mind. He tried observing Marinette to see similarities with Ladybug, but a hidden identity is hard to find. She certainly was kind, friendly, loyal and eager to help those in need. Her kindness had made Nathaniel fall in love with her and turn into a villain. Could she like him back? But if she did, then he wouldn't have been akumatized… But it shows she could be Ladybug.

"Guys" Juleka spoke up. "I was messaging my brother and he was nearby. Do you mind if he comes by?" Everyone nodded in agreement (Chloé just grunted).

Adrien liked Luka so of course didn't mind, but he glanced at Marinette for a second and she saw her eyes light up a bit, which surprised him and that gave the chance to Chloé to cling on him.

 _Could it be Luka the one she likes? The nice, kind, sensitive and best person she's known who doesn't know Marinette likes him?_

Adrien felt a pain in his chest and changed positions a bit, trying to remove Chloé from himself.


	7. Picnic gone wrong

_**Author's note:** Thanks a lot for following, favoring and reviewing this! I'm not quite sure of the review etiquette though! I thought about answering directly (apart from the guests of course), but I didn't want to bother you, so I chose not to. Feel free to express your thoughts though and tell me if you want any answer :D _

_On a random note, I can't wait for the new episodes to come out!_

* * *

Adrien achieved one of his two goals; he managed to shake Chloé off himself (the girls had been keeping her busy before and took the responsibility of keeping her company once again), but that burden in his chest did not leave him. He was smart enough to realize the cause of it, but it was just Marinette! He liked Ladybug, he shouldn't be feeling jealous over Marinette. She may as well be her, but they were still 2 different people in his mind. Could his feelings be so fickle? And could Luka really be the guy?

"Bud, are you feeling alright?" asked Nino who was sitting opposite him.

"Eh?" Adrien looked first at Nino and then noticed everyone was looking at him. "I'm ok, sorry," he apologized lingering his gaze towards Marinette longer. She looked at him puzzled and worried. "My mind drifted off a bit," he smiled apologetically.

"No problem, your face just looked like you were in pain."

"Yeah, you were thinking really hard," Alya agreed.

"In pain? Haha, no. I was thinking of work. You know how it is," he kept a cheery voice, although he was surprised he was showing his emotions so easily. He wasn't known for his poker face, but it wasn't so bad.

"Are you sure?" Marinette asked him. He looked at her warmly.

"Yes, sorry for worrying you."

"Oh no, not at all. I mean, it's not that I don't care, just… well, it's ok…" she stopped herself from talking more.

For a while, the conversation flowed easily with Chloé doing her usual antics, the girls trying to help Marinette as much as possible, everyone enjoying their time in different ways and different conversations and Adrien took his mind off Luka and gave in to conversing with everyone.

Marinette was also having the time of her life in this picnic. She was sitting next to Adrien, she could keep a conversation up (with minor speech setbacks), was having fun with everyone and the food was really good. She was happy over Luka coming too. She hadn't met him that many times, but they had common interests and it was fun talking to him.

Soon, Luka arrived and sat between Juleka and Marinette after greeting everyone. Adrien's smile fell a bit, but he didn't notice any special interaction between the two and he had told himself that he had nothing actually against him so he pushed away his irrational thoughts and talked to him normally.

"So, what's up with you guys? We haven't met for a while."

"You know us, still in school and covering Ladybug's adventures," Alya answered. "You can guess which is more exciting."

"Haha, school is like that. Mine isn't all that interesting either, but we have band practice almost every day after school, so it makes up for it," he smiled.

The conversation was moving fluently for a long while, although Chloé seemed to lose more patience by the minute. She was keeping herself busy trying to attract Adrien's undivided attention towards her, although she was failing for the most part as he was participating in other people's discussions, as well.

"How is the band going?" Adrien asked interested after he had answered one of Chloé's infinite questions.

"Pretty good, actually. We got a couple more gigs coming our way. You are all invited of course," he gestured towards everyone.

"That's amazing!" Alya exclaimed and everyone agreed. Juleka was shining with pride for her brother.

"What's so amazing about that?" A voice was heard. Of course, it was Chloé's.

"What do you mean?" Juleka asked defensively.

"He's just playing a guitar. Anyone can do that," she scoffed.

"Can _you_?" Alya retorted, but Chloé ignored him.

"Unless you can be as popular as Jagged Stone, any fool can pretend to be a musician," she waved her hands and got closer to Adrien. Before anyone could say anything, Marinette stepped in. She refused to let her ruin their day for more than she had already done and letting her run off her mouth like that was not the right thing to do.

"How can you be so rude, Chloé? What do you know about musicians? You can't even do anything on your own and you have the audacity to judge someone else's efforts?" Marinette flared, backed on by the oppressed anger she felt towards her for a while now. She was clenching her fists without even meaning to.

"How dare you!" Chloé gasped.

"No, the real question is how dare YOU! You came along today and what have you done, Chloé? Sit around," she looked at Chloé's hands around Adrien's arm, but held back mentioning him, "order us around and comment negatively on everything and anything. What have you done that earned you the right to comment on others' actions?"

"As you know, I am the mayor's daught–"

Marinette cut her off. "Yes, we _all_ know your dad is the mayor, but that is just your dad. What have you done?"

Chloé's eyebrows shot up, probably because she wasn't used to being spoken to like that and her mouth opened twice, before her face was suddenly restored to her previous nonchalant posture, although even more smug. No one spoke or moved during that pause.

"Oh my, aren't we awfully upset, Marinette?" she almost purred, but her voice always had a snobby edge to it and she couldn't get rid of that.

"What do you mean?" she was confused momentarily, blinded by her anger. There were times she had felt sorry for her and she knew Chloé was her fan, but it seemed that her existence was literally there to torment everyone.

"You seem angry all of a sudden for no apparent reason, no less. Is it because of this boy? What was his name again? Louis? Lucas?"

"Luka!" Juleka shouted. Everyone else, including Luka who was the cause of the fight, was still sitting silently watching back and forth the exchange. They probably hadn't realized it yet themselves what exactly was happening, although at the back of their mind there was this liberating feeling of having someone telling Chloé off. Most of them have talked back to her (or tried to at least) and even Marinette has held her ground against her, but this was more on the unusual side.

"Whatever," she flipped her hair.

"W-what?" Marinette faltered, because she lost the purpose of this conversation. They were talking about Chloé and her ways, so how had this suddenly turned on her?

"What's wrong, Marinette? Are you… shy for some reason perhaps?"

"N-no!" she fought to get her composure back. She could see now where she was getting at and felt her anger coming back up again. Despite her feelings, her face had betrayed her as a warm red was blossoming on her cheeks. She wanted to shake her head to lessen the blushing, but also couldn't really help feeling rightfully embarrassed with Adrien AND Luka right over there. She liked both of them (differently, of course) and she would hate having Adrien misunderstand. "I… just don't understand how you could be so insensitive sometimes, Chloé!" This time her voice was calmer, yet firmer.

" _I_ am insensitive?" she asked offended.

"I thought you were a fan of Ladybug. Do you think she would approve of this behavior?" Marinette ventured knowing first hand Chloé's loyalty towards her superhero identity.

"I'm best friends with Ladybug, of course she supports me! She knows fully well as I that I'm being nice to others!"

Everyone knew she was lying through her teeth, even Luka who hadn't seen her before and Adrien who looked at her funny. She ignored their gazes though and sat back in her chair, her arms crossed.

"That's not true!" she couldn't control her mouth. She shouldn't have continued towards that line of questioning, but she was lying and she didn't know how to back off right now. She was still sitting down, but her fists were still clenched, she could feel the nails biting a bit into her flesh, her face was almost on fire, but most of all, she could feel sitting straight up and looking Chloé eye to eye. Adrien was sitting right next to her and he felt his gaze on her too together with everyone else's and she had no idea where she could hide now. Did she even want to hide when it had come to this?

"What did you say?" Chloé turned her head towards her sharply.

"I said it's not true. Ladybug and Chat Noir are the city's protectors. They would never approve of your bullying!"

"What baseless accusations are these?! I'll call my dad," she took her phone out of her purse and was ready to start dialing.

"That's what you always–" Marinette flared up again before getting cut off by Adrien who put his hand on Chloé's phone and spoke, breaking the unnatural stillness everyone had until then.

"Now now, there is no need for that," he tried to smooth things over with a smile.

"There is always time to tell dad about people harassing me," Chloé defended herself.

"HARAS–" Marinette moved forward a bit, but Adrien put his other hand on her shoulder gently and looked at her, effectively stopping her at her tracks.

"You are both a bit over the edge currently. You should calm down for now," he addressed both of them with almost an apologetic smile. How could Marinette go against him?

Once Adrien spoke, everyone else seemed to wake up from their stupor and tried to revive the conversation, but it was hard to do that as everyone felt a bit awkward, especially Juleka since it was her own brother Chloé had insulted. Adrien was trying to contain her and Marinette wasn't speaking much, since she was mentally berating herself and thinking how much of a fool she had made of herself for Adrien to step in.

She was absentmindedly playing with a cookie in her hands, answering Alya's and Rose's questions whenever they tried to lure her into their fun, but couldn't very well follow up.

"Thank you for sticking up for me," suddenly a voice from her right was heard close enough to her ear, so she was the only one who could hear it.

"Eh?" she turned her head abruptly, taken aback. She saw Luka's face really close to hers and moved back a few centimeters with wide eyes.

"For before, when that blond girl, Chloé, was talking about me," he clarified. He seemed sincere, but a small smile grew on his face watching her jump like that.

"Ah, it was nothing," she awkwardly smiled crushing the cookie by accident. "She is always like that."

"It wasn't nothing! I don't think I could handle her, especially like you did."

"I'm sorry, it was too much, wasn't it?" she apologized dropping her head a bit.

"It was great! It surprised me to be honest. I'm used to express my feelings through the guitar, but you did it so easily without any of that. Impressive, really."

"Th-thanks you." She mumbled all embarrassed again. "I mean, you know, thanks… to you," she stuttered a bit, laughing to cover it up.

"Haha, I know," he warmly laughed with her and she felt comfortable enough to look at him instead of avoiding his face, because of her mistakes.

"Guys, I think it's time to go." Alya said loudly so she could be heard by everyone. "It's almost evening and judging by the clouds, it may rain," she pointed upwards, but to Marinette it was obvious she was trying to break them up, because everyone was still awkward. She couldn't help blaming Chloé, knowing that if she hadn't come at all, everyone would still be there having fun. Because of her, she couldn't even look at Adrien anymore; half of embarrassment and half of not wanting to see _her_ clinging even more to him.

Despite her thoughts, she stole a glance towards him once Alya had spoken and for one unnerving second, she could have sworn Adrien was looking at her with the corner of his eye. But she blinked and the moment was gone and she was sure she must have imagined it, because why would he be looking at her? Or maybe he was silently judging her for before? She blushed at the thought and chastised herself looking away.

"Marinette?" Luka nudged her shoulder.

"Wh-what?" She jumped a bit, coming back from her thoughts.

"Do you want to go home with us?" he pointed towards himself, Juleka and Rose.

"Yeah, Marinette! We'll take the bus," Rose nodded happily.

"Hmm? But we came with Adrien, it would be impolite to not return back all together," she explained, but Luka was already pointing towards him.

"I don't think there will be a problem."

Marinette turned her head again, only to see Chloé in one of her moods. Adrien was trying to calm her down, but she refused to listen at that moment. She heard him mention that she wasn't treating us right and that he thought they had already talked about her behavior towards the rest, but she wasn't having it.

 _Not again._ Marinette thought dejectedly.

"Chloé, are you feeling ok?" Marinette heard Alya asking her. She was surprised Alya would care that much, but she looked back at her again.

"No, I'm not feeling ok!" she repeated. Marinette was about to roll her eyes, but Alya was already standing and going towards her. "What do you want? Hey, don't touch me!" she demanded trying to push her away, but Alya ignored her and touched her forehead.

"You're running a fever."

"She is?" Adrien seemed worried and touched her forehead himself. "She's right, you're burning up just a tad," he seemed surprised.

"Awww, poor Chloé," Rose chimed in.

"I knew there must have been a reason for you to be worse than usual today," exclaimed Alya, but before Chloé could answer, she continued. "I noticed later on that your face was more red than usual, but thought maybe it was the natural light not agreeing with you, at first."

"What? How dare you?!" she shouted, but then she put her hand on her head, as if she were dizzy and Adrien caught her just in case. "Ah, Adrien, can you please take me home, right away?" Her voice dropped a couple notches.

Marinette was caught between seriously rolling her eyes watching her being a drama queen and actual guilt for possibly making her feel worse before. She never meant to fight with her, much less when she was apparently sick. She felt that apologizing would be the right thing, but couldn't bring herself to do it when she saw her grab the chance to monopolize Adrien.

"Sure, Chloé. We'll clean up and go home with everyone else."

"No! I'm not feeling well, I want to go home right now!" she pouted and then added. "Please?"

"Chloé…" he started, but Nino cut him off.

"Dude, it's ok. You can take her home and we'll return once we are done here. No worries," he thumbed up.

"Are you sure?" Adrien looked a bit dejected himself and guilty to just abandon them there. After all, Chloé wasn't his priority in this outing, but he couldn't leave his oldest friend there alone.

"Of course. Right, guys?" Nino asked everyone else. They agreed readily. The girls wanted to help Marinette more, but they knew it wasn't the right time or place for that, since Chloé would only make it worse.

Everyone got up and started picking up things, while Adrien was helping Chloé with her things to walk back to the parked car. Marinette was picking the bowls from the ground, trying to hide her disappointment, when Adrien came next to her and whispered close to her ear.

"I'm sorry for today."

"Ah? N-no, um… For what?" she stumbled over her words, but continued. "It's not your fault. She wasn't feeling well and I, well… I shouldn't have shouted at her. I should apologize," she looked towards her, but made no move.

"She can be a bit difficult… or a lot, I suppose," he almost chuckled.

"… I suppose." Marinette tried to smile back.

"Adrien!" Chloé's shrill voice came around.

Adrien looked apologetically to Marinette, excused himself to everyone and left with her. Marinette stood there for a few seconds watching their backs, Chloé leaning towards him feigning weakness so Adrien could help her up, which he did, because he cared.

 _If only he could do that to me_ … She sighed and was about to turn when she saw Chloé turning her head behind her, looking at her and sticking her tongue out. She frowned, but the second Chloé turned forward, Adrien looked back at her smiling and his gaze lingered a bit longer, before they took a turn and she couldn't see them anymore.


	8. Another day begins

_**Author's note:** Thanks a lot again for following, favoring and reviewing this! Although, I don't get a lot of reviews (which isn't surprising, since this story doesn't have anything wow in it, haha), it's always nice to see people checking the story out and hopefully enjoying it to some extent. I have to try and compress the story though, I tend to write and write :'D Sorry about that :x  
_

 _Either way, thanks again and also, I really liked the new Ladybug episode!_

* * *

A new week had begun and Marinette's mood had improved after that catastrophic day trip. After some time passed and calmed down, she reminded herself that albeit Chloé was always like this, things always looked up soon after because no one really picked her side so any fight or misunderstanding was usually forgotten. Admittedly, ever since Hawkmoth appeared, Chloé had helped in creating many akumatized villains because of her behavior, but everyone knew that and somehow could still put up with her. She did not know how she did it herself sometimes; maybe it was the way she has seen Chloé trying to do better or her own guilt over making her into a villain herself. It was definitely a strange feeling having your school bully admiring you in your other persona. The best thing was, of course, that Adrien with his limitless patience and caring towards her, often scolded her, so she was mostly feeling bad for him having to leave with her rather than feeling jealous.

Or, at least, she tried to tell herself that. Partly it was true, she knew that, but she had these fleeting fantasies of Adrien leaving everyone and everything to go with her.

"Earth to Marinette," Alya's voice drifted to her ears, bringing her back from her thoughts. Alya has just arrived and sat next to her in class.

"What's up?" she asked with a smile.

"Nothing much. I was hoping there would be some akuma action in the weekend, alas there was peace and quiet," she replied dramatically.

"Isn't that a good thing?" she grinned this time knowing how hardcore her friend could be.

"For the people of Paris… maybe. But for the Ladyblog? Not so much," she sighed, but it only made Marinette grin more.

"I don't think Ladybug would like that kind of thinking! Who knows, maybe next time you will cause trouble yourself to attract hers and Chat Noir's attention."

"You think I could do that?" her face lit up.

"Alya!" she bumped her fist to her shoulder. Alya laughed in return.

"Ok ok, I will remain out of trouble… for now!" she added and then, looked at Marinette a bit slyly. "Now it's your turn to tell me how was Saturday," she lowered her voice a bit.

"What do you mean?" she looked puzzled at first. "The picnic? You were there," she said in a more hushed tone following her lead.

" _After_ the picnic. You seemed almost like a wreck at first, but you had cheered up by the time we split up. Didn't Luka take you home?"

Marinette shook her head half smiling. Luka and Juleka walked both Rose and her home after the bus drive for their safety, even though there was no real danger. She knew Alya was teasing her, because it was obvious she had a lot of fun whenever she was talking with Luka.

"You're exaggerating. It's true I felt… upset before, mostly because of Chloé and her actions, but you know how it is. The more energy I spend on Chloé, the more time I waste," she frowned a bit, but then she smiled mischievously at Alya. "I won't lie though, talking back at her was great!"

"Hahaha, you should do it more often. You were cool."

"I was?" Marinette remembered distinctly how angry she felt and was sure that she didn't look nice or friendly and she was probably a bit pale too… or red. Definitely a mess.

"Of course, girl! I swear even Adrien looked at you admiringly."

"He did?!" she almost squealed. She couldn't remember anything like that. Of course, she felt everyone's gazes on her, but she could see mostly surprise on their faces.

"How could he have not? You were amazing! You don't know how much I regretted it later that I didn't manage to capture that scene forever," she pointed to her phone in front of her.

"Don't be silly," she smiled shyly. Thinking of Adrien admiring her was a warm feeling. He had also tried to cheer her up, though unfortunately he had to leave with her. She glanced over the class. "Which reminds me… I don't see Chloé here. Look, Sabrina is on her own. Think she is still sick?"

"I guess. If she was running a fever on Saturday, it could have developed into a full-blown cold," she said nonchalantly. "I should feel bad, but picturing her sneezing all the time is rather entertaining."

Marinette pictured her the same way, sneezing and tired, and her immediate response was an empathetic sadness, but thinking of what she has done to her, she thought it was a bit of karma. She would have almost smiled if she didn't feel that Chloé wasn't worth changing her personality. She did feel bad for her butler though, he had done nothing wrong to deserve being ordered around all day because of her.

"Hmmm, I don't see Adrien either," Alya mentioned a few seconds later. Marinette had also noticed that earlier, but she figured he would come sooner or later and there was still time. Or maybe he could be running a bit late. It was just a few days ago they were both late, why couldn't it happen again?

"He isn't coming today," a voice was suddenly heard near them. It belonged to Sabrina, who was sitting at the edge of her shared desk and was looking at them smugly.

"What are you talking about?" Alya asked her.

"He's nursing Chloé," she continued with her smugly face and showed them a picture on her phone. "She sent me this in the morning!" she puffed.

Both girls and every classmate that was near them looked towards Sabrina's phone and their mouths made perfect little _o_ 's, with Marinette's being a big _O_. The photo depicted a sleeping Adrien on an armchair which was moved next to Chloé's bed, while she was close to him still sitting on her bed, wearing a medical mask and doing a V sign with her free hand. You could almost see the smile underneath that mask.

"Adrien was nursing her the whooole weekend," she cooed. "He's always so nice to her, what a perfect couple!"

A multitude of feelings passed through Marinette in rapid succession, thinking that instead of the butler, it was Adrien that was ordered around and he was following her every word just to make her feel better because of her cold. Under Sabrina's smug look, she settled in contentment. She was sure Chloé was guilt-tripping him to stay there and Adrien was her childhood friend and he would never leave a friend alone if they needed him. She supposed there was also Sabrina, but Chloé wouldn't miss the chance to keep him to himself.

She forced her panicked and jealous thoughts down before replying to Sabrina's quiet question.

"Th-that's really nice of him. Does that mean she is feeling worse than before?" she managed to stutter unwillingly, but Sabrina didn't dwell on that. She felt the back of her neck warm, but she kept a straight face as much as she could trying to change the topic.

"Her fever rose and then she got a sore throat. She's still coughing," she said with a sad face and then looked at the 2 girls with her brows together. "It's your fault! She was all alone with you and look what happened!"

"Hey, back up, Sabrina! We did nothing to her and she was the one who wanted to come along in the first place," Alya crossed her arms and sat back. "Why didn't she invite you if she was so alone?"

"She- She was with Adrien and wanted to spend time with him!"

"So she wasn't 'all alone' as you claim. Or… are you blaming him for her cold?" Alya smiled and looked at Marinette who stayed silent. "Do you think we should tell him that?"

"Uhh," was all she could reply to that sudden question.

"I think we should," she grabbed the phone in front of her. Sabrina blanched.

"Wait, no! I n-never said it was his fault! It was you that were mean to her!" she pointed at both girls.

"That's not true, Sabrina," Rose, who was a couple meters away, intervened. "She sat in a corner, refused to help and didn't want to talk to us, other than not being nice when she did."

The bell rang at that moment and everyone started moving slowly to their desks.

"Hmph, you are just jealous," Sabrina finally said and sat properly.

Marinette was in a daze for a while, since Ms. Bustier came in right after the bell and started teaching them poetry, but she couldn't really pay attention to class. Her mind was going in various directions from thinking Adrien stuck with Chloé to guilt she yelled at a sick person and even guilt for rejoicing her confinement to bed. _I guess karma is a thing…_

But of course, all of her thoughts however they started, they always ended with thoughts about Adrien. She wanted to feel bad about Chloé more, but the picture Sabrina showed them was imprinted on her retinas and couldn't help thinking how unfair it was for him to staying there and taking care of her every need. She had him all to herself and she bet she was acting like a spoiled princess and Adrien would hardly say no to someone that was sick, especially since it happened without him noticing. Maybe if he had, she wouldn't have come in the first place, but… he probably wouldn't have come as well. And what if he caught her cold? What if he was confined in bed and then Chloé would take the opportunity to help him her better? What if it was all her fault for shouting at her and making things worse? Would Adrien get sick because of her own recklessness?

Marinette sighed as she doodled on her notebook and didn't even notice when Alya was whispering with Nino who sitting at the front desk and not even when the bell rang. Lost in her thoughts, she had managed to create some rough sketches for some fashion accessories, but she couldn't really admire her work, so she just turned the pages to fill a new blank sheet.

She suddenly saw a hand waving in front of her face and jumped back.

"What happened?" she looked around alarmed only to find Alya next to her.

"Are you ok?" she seemed worried. "Don't tell me you're taking Sabrina's words to heart."

"I'm… not, but it's not an ideal situation," she offered a sheepish smile.

"Girl, it's not your fault at all. She was definitely running a fever before you even spoke. There is no way to just get a cold so fast."

"I guess that's true, but still… Adrien is with her… because of me," she grumbled.

"No, Marinette. Of course Chloé would grab the chance to make him stay. How could it be your fault?"

Marinette sighed once again.

"I know you are right, but something is just nagging me," she exhaled slowly playing with her pen in her palm.

"I spoke to Nino. Truth is, Chloé is running him like a slave around; getting her this, getting her that, you know. She's obviously enjoying the attention, but poor guy hadn't managed to even really talk to Nino during the weekend. Nino texted him during class."

"Really? Well, not that I am surprised, but poor Adrien!" she explained with more spirit in her eyes than before.

"Yeah, at first he thought it was just a day thing, but she got worse and she got whiney and he had to stay. His father made him attend his Sunday lessons too," Alya sighed and shook her head.

"Ugh, why every trouble needs to originate from Chloé?" Marinette asked feeling more energetic. And then, she had an idea. "Do you think we should visit her?"

"Who? _Chloé?_ Why?"

Marinette thought of seeing Adrien, but mostly helping him take a break. On one hand he had to deal with Chloé's capriciousness and on the other his dad's strict schedule for which Chloé didn't care much. And although she didn't want to admit it, she felt bad about her. As Alya pointed out, it might not have been her fault, but she still felt like she had some small part in it.

"She is sick, we should get her a get-well gift!"

"Aaand you want to see Adrien," lowered her voice while smiling. "I don't know if I'm capable of putting up with Chloé when she's sick, she sounds 10 times worse."

"We'll get the girls and Sabrina and visit them. That way there would be less problems."

"Yes, instead of just sick Chloé, it would be sick Chloé AND Sabrina," she sighed and raised her hands. "Well, I know what you mean. You are too good for your own self sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"That you would want to go even if Adrien wasn't there."

"I don't think so!" Her tone wasn't really convincing though.

During the break, they arranged for almost everyone in class to surprise visit Chloé with a present for her fast recovery after school. Marinette was kind of surprised at the amount of people, but she suspected it was more curiosity of seeing her in her weak state, than true empathy for their fellow classmate. They were also happy they would hang out all together and had fun exchanging ideas for the gift; some said some fruit, some said a teddy bear and some said other kinds of food, such as chocolate.

The talk continued during lunch break and Marinette's mood had brightened up. Things were not going so good the past few days and her luck didn't seem to change for the better as it seemed, but it also seemed like they could find some solutions to every situations. They would go and cheer up Chloé, although she wasn't sure how much she would like that, but she would like the presents and most of all, Adrien would like their presence, even if it meant he could be just using to get a break without Chloé hovering over him for a picture in his sleep.

She sneaked a peek to her phone during last class to look at one of Adrien's photos and then focused to the subject at hand, because she had already missed first period, thanks to Sabrina's news and she didn't want to fall behind even more.

 _Soon_ , she thought smiling while taking notes.


	9. Visit for the sick

"Bring me a glass of water, please!"

"I feel cold! Bring me a blanket!"

"Oof, it's so hot! Please, open the window!"

"I'm hungry."

"I'm feeling tired, can you put me to sleep?"

"Please feed me, my body feels weak."

"Can you help me up? So tired!"

Adrien had heard a multitude of direct and indirect orders in the span of less than 2 days. By now he had forgotten why he even stayed there. He had brought Chloé home and she asked one thing, then another and next thing he knew he was trapped in her room for hours doing this and that. At some point he was even helping her with homework before realizing that there was no need for her to do it right then and certainly no need for him to do it for her.

He had also felt uncomfortable stares from her whenever he wasn't looking. Once he napped on her armchair after she had asked him to read a story for her and in his sleepy state, he felt her close to him and then a click sound. He didn't dwell on it much, but he was getting really tired now. His father wouldn't excuse him from his lessons and Chloé basically guilt-tripped him and despite knowing this, he felt bad for leaving her alone when sick and seemingly helpless. Which he knew was a faulty thought process, because Chloé was one of the richest people in Paris and would definitely not stay alone or helpless for long if she wanted to. But still, they were childhood friends.

He had missed school this morning and even though he tried explaining that to Chloé, her fever suddenly rose up and she was looking at him expectantly with wide eyes with a hand over her forehead in a dramatic fashion. He knew better, but he had already napped longer than necessary and she would probably complain a lot after, so he gave in. But he also couldn't forget Plagg so he brought him some cheese from the kitchen after one of her food orders.

Losing the track of time, he didn't realize it was already early evening when his classmates visited. He could have sworn it was still morning, but was surprised to see the sun wasn't as high up as it should have been, but was also surprised that in those 2 days he didn't think about his own problem, but it all came back when he saw Marinette. He was too exhausted though and he was genuinely happy to see everyone there and flashed them a big smile, just so he could talk to someone else and maybe away from Chloé.

Chloé on the other hand didn't seem nearly as happy as others and was about to chew Sabrina off for not warning her, but Adrien glanced at her right then and she pretended to cough heavily.

"You shouldn't stay long," she said and coughed a bit more. "I don't think it'll be safe for you."

"Adrien has been here and he seems okay, maybe it's not that serious!" Alya exclaimed, but before Chloé could butt in, she continued "We brought you some get well gifts to wish for your speedy… recovery," she paused a bit at the end and a few noticed, although Chloé seemed unperturbed and was looking at the basket in Alix's hands with a sharp eye.

"Yeah, we all got together and bought you the chocolates you love from that pastry shop you like," said Kim.

"Mmmm," was all Chloé said with a raised eyebrow. That was as closed to a pleased expression towards as it could be. Alix handed her the basket and everyone chattered away, some wishing her well, some others just talking to each other or pointing things in the room, since for a few of them it was the first time they had stepped into her room. Chloé was fiddling with her chocolate with an obvious joy when her eye fell on Marinette who was standing at the back quietly. "What is SHE doing here?" she raised her voice and seemed to cough for real this time.

"Hello, Chloé," she tried.

"And goodbye! What nerve coming here after what you did to me! Sabrina, show her out!" she looked the other way.

"Wait! I wanted to a-apologize… for what happened," she managed to say, even though she wasn't entire sure she felt it 100%.

"Apologize? It's too late for that. Look what you've done to me!" she pointed to herself while sparing her a glance.

"I didn't do this to you!"

"Is this your apology?!"

"Yes, I mean… no," she stumbled over her words. "I apologize for taking too far and... possibly making you feel worse."

"Hmph, avoiding responsibility. Sabrina, the door!"

"Wait, Chloé, you can't honestly believe it's Marinette's fault you got a cold?" Adrien intervened and stepped in front.

"And why not? I was feeling fine before she started attacking me!" she pouted with her usual look of superiority.

"Because it's nonsense and you know it. You had caught a cold from before and you finally showed symptoms. It's not physically impossible for a cold to appear in a matter of minutes. You know that! And I thought we already talked about what happened," he chastised her crossing his arms. She still wanted to complain, but she wasn't sure how she could do it without him protecting her, something she really despised.

"Ugh, I don't care really," she groaned turning her eyes to Marinette. "The least you could do is to bring me some water."

"Me?" Marinette was surprised at the sudden change of tone and she was really expecting her to throw her out, but she asked help from her?

"Yes, you."

"You have water right here," pointed Rose to her bed table.

"That's old," she answered.

"S-sure," she replied and exited the door. Albeit the rest tried to talk her out of it, Marinette had calmed them down and if she wanted to be honest to herself, she preferred not being in the same room as her so it wasn't an entirely bad experience that she had to leave. But of course, part of her idea to come here was Adrien and she was happy that he seemed glad to see them, but on the other hand, he was at the other side of the door.

She sighed and looked around to find her place. It was a big hotel, but she had been here before helping here and there, even as Ladybug so she knew how to navigate herself more or less. But her own luxury room should have a kitchen somewhere so she started checking the place around her.

Back in the room, Adrien was shaking his head at Chloé who was innocently blinking back and soon turned her attention to the basket at hand. He could hear his classmates quietly talking about Marinette and some of them broached the topic to her, but Chloé's eyes did not seem forthcoming and they stopped. As he learnt soon after, Marinette had told them to ignore any jabs she would make against her as to not ruin another day, especially one that she was already sick.

Sometimes he wondered how… nice Marinette always was. He knew Chloé since they were children, but he only noticed how she'd treat others than him in a harsh way and was surprised to see people putting up with that. He wanted to help her as much as he could and he saw that he listened to him to some extent, but was it enough to help her get along with everyone else?

"I'll go help Marinette. She doesn't know where things are, I think," he told Alya who was near and moved to leave.

"Sure, we'll keep her busy," she smiled and moved forward to ask Chloé of random things. "Chloé, is this your shoe closer?!" Adrien smiled too and slipped out of the room. He found her pacing in front of a door, apparently not sure what to do. He crept slowly towards her.

"Hello Marinette," he said with a hidden smile. She jumped back.

"AHH!" She turned to look at him with wide eyes. "A-A-A-Adrien? What are y-you doing here?"

He couldn't help but chuckle at her honest reaction. Out of everyone, she was the only one who showed such fresh reactions and although he didn't do it often, he liked teasing her just to see what she would do.

"I came to help and I assume you needed it seeing you walking back and forth," he pointed at the door.

"N-n-no. I'm ok," she smiled shyly putting her arm behind her head awkwardly.

"So you wanted to walk back and forth in front of the bathroom?"

"The bathroom?!" Her ears reddened.

"I don't think anyone's in if you want to go," he smiled mischievously. She looked a bit panicked looking at the door a bit horrified.

"I'm… I was looking for the kitchen," she tried keeping a straight face after turning towards him. "I just meant I didn't need any help. Y-you should rest a bit!"

"It shows that much?" He wondered himself how tired he looked. Plagg had made fun of him in one of those moments when Chloé was asleep and told him he looked like a panda because of the bags under his eyes.

"N-NO!" Her horrified eyes were back and she waved her hands in front of her. "I just meant you would need some rest after taking care of Chloé for 2 days."

"I think I agree with you," he passed his hand through his hair thinking he wanted to sleep without eyes on him. "But first, we should get her water." He moved towards the corner where some fancy cupboards were and opened one of them. "There's actually a fridge here."

"Oh, I didn't expect that," she said moving closer.

"I became greatly acquainted with it the past few days. Jean, the butler, offered to help me, but… it didn't really work," he shrugged the memories of her suddenly feeling worse whenever Jean came close.

"Maybe… you should escape home now," she said quietly.

"What do you mean?" he asked as he poured water in a glass.

"Err, I think Chloé's a bit better than what Sabrina kept telling us she was during the weekend. Maybe you should go home and rest for a while and we can keep her company."

"It's a good idea, but…" he felt guilty leaving like that. What if she felt worse because of him?

"I guess you're worried, silly me, haha," she laughed awkwardly and turned her eyes away. "Of course you couldn't leave her alone," she bonked her head with her fist.

"I am worried or at least I _was_ , but now that I am away from her and my dad, I realize that I am probably not as needed here as much as I thought. She feels better with people she knows," he explained with a thoughtful expression. "She was pretty lively once you all came."

"She was, although not happy to see me," she sighed. "And she seemed to 'cough' a lot," Marinette joked.

"Yeah… cough," he agreed with a smile.

For a few seconds they stood there quietly. She was darting her eyes towards him and then behind him, as if not being able to focus entirely and she somehow seemed shy. He could see that something was bothering her and wondered if he should ask her and help her somehow. She had helped him various times and reminding himself that the girl in front him might be Ladybug, the person he liked, gave him a renewed strength to actively try and learn more things about her.

He had almost opened his mouth to speak when Marinette beat him to the punch.

"We, I mean I s-should probably take the water back to the room," she exclaimed suddenly. She moved forward and awkwardly held out her hand to grasp the glass of water Adrien had left on a near cupboard, but somehow managed to trip herself and found the floor approaching fast to her face. She put the arms forward to protect herself as much as she could, but a hand grabbed her arm before hitting the ground.

"Marinette! Are you ok?" He set her straight up on her legs, but was still holding her by her upper arm, but with less force of course. Her face betrayed her surprised from the sudden incident and she was trying to regain her balance.

"Um, I'm good, great really! Just an accident, you know me, clumsy as always. Good thing I didn't spill the glass on you," she spoke fast finding his eyes and avoiding them once again.

He laughed for a second. "Yes, your clumsiness is one of your cute points," he exclaimed and felt her go still in his grasp. She was looking at him with wide eyes.

 _Was that a weird thing to say?_

He really thought that was cute and Marinette was generally cute, but he also realized that it wasn't a conscious thought before and her recognition of her own clumsiness suddenly made sense to him.

 _Maybe it was a bit too forward… But isn't it something I'd do as Chat Noir?_

He got embarrassed the more he thought about it and now it was him that couldn't look at her directly.

"Err, t-thanks," she stammered once again but this time her eyes kept looking at him all wide. He took his hand back and just nodded. "Erm, thank you for helping me, as well!" she smiled and grabbed the glad of water. "I should really be getting back now!" She nodded towards him and almost ran back to the room.

Was she that scared of him? Or maybe he offended her somehow with his comment. If yes, he maybe had done the opposite of progress and she wouldn't talk to him again easily. She was probably as embarrassed as himself, although he really meant it. It was weird how Marinette was that clumsy when Ladybug always seemed fierce and in control. If he thought about it, he could see resemblances, because both of them were strong, just in different areas. Obviously, Marinette had no super powers, but she was always there for everyone that needed it and helped them more than maybe a superhero could. Then again, as Ladybug and Chat Noir, they always helped everyone in any way they could. Were those 2 really that different?

He shook his head and headed for the bathroom to wash his face as if it could clear his thoughts. He headed back to the room and after seeing everyone scattered around the room, he noticed with sad eyes Marinette running around the room with Chloé giving her directions. He could see the girls wearing a concerned face, but they didn't say much other than trying to distract her. Knowing Marinette, she was probably doing it on purpose to avoid any conflict in Chloé's room since they came to visit her. For some reason though, she was smiling pretty genuinely

He stepped forward and deftly stopped Chloé terrorizing Marinette by scolding her and soothing her. She could really cold her grudges, but she usually listened to him. She then proceeded to throws daggers with her eyes towards Marinette, but at least she didn't order her around anymore. After that, a few of the girls asked her about some of her brand clothes lying around and she started bragging about her mother who owned a magazine and knew everything about fashion. He had to stay with them for a long while, since Chloé wanted him, but after some time he found an excuse to go further away.

"Adrien, come sit here," beckoned Nino from the adjoining living room. Alya, Marinette, Alix, Ivan, Juleka and Kim were also sitting with him and Kim was shuffling a deck of cards in his hands. He was more than happy to stay with them for a while, so he sat next to Ivan.

"Are we playing cards?" he asked.

"Anything to avoid being next to her. I wonder how you could do it for 2 days straight," Alya pondered out loud and everyone vaguely agreed although not openly.

"She isn't so bad…" he started, but he couldn't really convince himself when Chloé was really acting like a spoiled child. "Ok, she is a bit over the top when she is sick," he conceded. "But she is a friend."

"Tough luck, dude," Nino nodded.

"We should play some cards to help you unwind then," Kim suggested. "And whoever wins gets to dare the person with the least points!" Alix and Alya groaned.

"Do we really have to count points?" Alix asked.

"How else will it be fun? And I will get to order one of you! Win-win."

"Assuming you actually win." Alya added and Ivan agreed.

"Of course I will win!"

"We haven't even decided on a game."

"Crazy Eights."

Adrien wasn't familiar with card games really, since he didn't have people to play with before, but the rules were easy; the goal was to get rid of your every card by playing a card that matches either by number or by suit or an 8. They modified the rules so some of the cards had consequences if played and the person with the least points at hand is the one who wins, so he'd have to be fast.

The game proceeded fine with Adrien having the beginner's luck, something that Kim didn't appreciate and was trying his best to win.

"Almost at the top," exclaimed Kim.

"Adrien is still beating you, dude," Nino teased him.

"Ha, this isn't over!"

"We'll see about that, Kim," Adrien brought his brows together. He wasn't usually competitive, but it was fun when the stakes were so low and they were all having fun.

"The true goal of the game is to avoid being last though," noted Alya. "Even more so if Kim is bound to win." Everyone chuckled, except Kim who was very focused at his own cards, as if he could will them to be the best they could.

"I think the true goal is having fun," Marinette said with a bright smile. Adrien still had the suspicion she was still avoiding looking at him, but he couldn't really figure out why exactly.

"That's because you're not losing," grumbled Alya. She was at the bottom currently while Marinette was 3 places higher so there was virtually no danger.

"Haha, I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Marinette, it's your turn," Adrien pointed at her, gauging her reaction.

"Ah yes, yes, sorry," she fumbled her cards and played her choice.

After a couple of rounds, there was a sudden turn of events with Marinette hitting the bottom and although she really didn't seem to mind as she had stated before, Adrien felt it was an opportunity to get closer so he got more anxious of winning. Unfortunately for him, Kim was the one at the top currently, albeit with a small difference to Adrien's score.

But before the round finished, Juleka's and Marinette's phone went off at the same time. Both grabbed their phones looking at each other curiously and checked the incoming message.

"Ah, it's Luka," said knowingly Juleka.

"Yes, I had almost forgotten about it," she put her phone down again. "We should be going," he was looking at Juleka.

"What's going on?" Alya asked and Adrien thanked her mentally.

"My brother asked us to listen to his band's practicing today. It's usually me going, but Marinette was excited to come along, as well."

"It really is exciting! I remember they played really well and I wanted to see a band practice once!" she grinned, but then she noticed the cards in her hands and her face fell a bit. "I'm sorry, guys, for leaving sooner."

"Can't you leave a bit later? We'll have to stop the game otherwise," Kim said.

"There's not enough time. But as I see it, I'm the one losing, either way," she shrugged as if she didn't mind and got up to pack up her things.

"I guess… and of course I would win, so maybe there is no point dragging it out," he said confidently.

"Haha, I trust you to not ask me something weird though!"

"We will see," he rubbed his chin pointedly.

"But!" Adrien suddenly said and all eyes were on him. He said it before thinking much, because he was surprised by how fast things changed. One moment they all had fun together and he was trying to win and the next, Marinette was leaving to find Luka and Kim was the winner. He couldn't care much about Kim though, he kept thinking it was just Juleka and Marinette going to where Luka was. He shouldn't have minded as much, but he did. "Err," he looked at everyone trying to think of what to say. "What about Chloé? You came for her, didn't you?"

"You're right…, but you are all here and I don't think she will miss me," she shrugged again a bit more shyly this time.

"Not only that, but we've been here for a couple hours now," Alya said.

"It's only been an hour though," Ivan spoke.

"Well, it definitely felt like 2 hours," she smiled. "Some of us should escape as soon as possible. Tell us how it went later, girls," she waved at them as they moved a bit aside. They waved back, said their goodbyes and after excusing themselves to Chloé as timidly as they could, they left and Adrien could do nothing else other than watching them go.


	10. A musical evening

_**Author's note:** It actually sounds so heavy every time I write "author", haha, so unreal. Either way, I wanted to say thanks for any new person interested in this and special thanks to Misheru Haruno who actually commented on every chapter. Thanks, it really makes my heart flutter to see the numbers going up and people enjoy it :D_

 _As always, leave reviews and all that and most of all, I hope you all enjoyed the 2 new episodes as much as I did :D For a second there, I really wanted to hug Gabriel.  
_

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"Do you think Adrien was acting weird?" Marinette asked Juleka once they left the hotel behind.

"Weird how?"

"He seemed pretty… anxious? Just when we were about to leave," she said thoughtfully.

"Did he? I didn't notice, I'm sorry."

"Oh, no need to apologize! It's probably in my head, either way," she waved her hand and laughed awkwardly.

"But if he were, I suppose he might not have wanted us to leave."

"You think?!" Marinette turned her head towards her while walking.

"Yes," Juleka nodded, "To avoid staying alone with Chloé once again," she concluded.

"Oh… Oh yeah, Chloé. I guess that's maybe it," she conceded with a feeling of disappointment.

Truth be told, he did look tired when they came over to see him – her! (She meant to think her!) But he acted a bit strangely from her point of view, or was it really her strangeness that made him act strange? Or it was truly in her head? The conversation they had outside Chloé's room was definitely strange, but then again, she mostly remembered herself acting uncool and embarrassed just because they were alone. She was even thankful for Luka's message, because after basically running away from him, she avoided even looking at him.

 _Argh, why am I like this?! I should have talked to him more!_

She was wishfully thinking he may not have wanted her to leave, because the conversation she found magical (albeit, completely embarrassing for her), he may have thought magical as well! He called her cute, after all! Or that she had cute points! Though a bit frustrating that her clumsiness was that cute point… Maybe he didn't even mean it as a compliment in the end… And maybe he really just wanted more people to be there so he would take a longer break.

 _Maybe it was a good idea to leave. I'm starting to imagine things._

"What do you think Kim will ask of you?" Juleka interrupted her fast-approaching-to-depression thought process.

"Hmm?" She turned to her. "I have no idea. I just hope he won't ask to compete on something, because that's a sure humiliation for me," she laughed, clearing her mind from Adrien. Juleka joined too.

"He has done some outrageous things, but I can only see him asking for a personal servant," she moved her hands as if she were massaging someone in front of her. Marinette pictured it mentally and it really fit Kim's vanity. She burst out laughing.

"I can see it all too well! But I don't mind, that would be easy," she said and truly believed it. "Oh Juleka, we should cross the road before the light turns red, c'mon." She motioned towards Juleka and they both ran.

For the rest of the walk to the band's place, they chattered along, talking about nonsensical things, like how Ivan got a nice month anniversary to Mylène, how Alix got new roller-skates or how Alya was trying to experiment with Ladyblog's interface. Without even noticing how much time passed, they reached the place they agreed to and although it was somewhere Marinette didn't really frequent to, Juleka knew the way.

After knocking on the door, Luka ushered them inside and they found a sweet spot to sit throughout the practice, which was Juleka's spot to be precise. Marinette was feeling excited once again, focusing only on what was happening in front of her and was asking Juleka various things from the instruments to songs to techniques.

"You're very interested in this, Marinette," Juleka commented a bit surprised.

"I am! Ever since I became a Jagged Stone fan, I've been fascinated by guitars! And this," she pointed towards all of the band members, "is really fun," she exclaimed with a blush on her cheeks, this time from excitement, not embarrassment.

"How come you had never said so before?"

"Hmm, I think I never realized how fun it was. Fashion excites me more, so I am content listening to others playing," she said thoughtfully. "But there is something magical listening up close live music. Your brother and his friends are really talented!"

"Haha, thank you, Marinette," Juleka smiled. "I'll pass on the compliments."

"What? Oh no no, you don't need to. Please," she asked her with an almost desperate face. It seemed awfully embarrassing to have someone else pass on messages from her like she couldn't say things on her own, especially when the person in question was right there.

"Hmm?" Juleka didn't seem to notice her reaction that much as she was taking a photo of the guys.

"Girls, are you ok there?" Luka's voice reached them. He was still in position and was looking right at them.

"Yes," nodded Juleka. "Marinette was just telling me how good you all sound."

Marinette felt her ears get warm. She knew there was nothing bad about it, but she barely knew him and it seemed like she was trying to keep it a secret by not telling them herself and it somehow felt wrong. She raised her eyes to meet Luka's and he was smiling kindly back at her.

"Y-y-yes," she stuttered and smiled awkwardly. If she couldn't avoid it, she would have to own it. "You were all playing so well."

"Really? Thank you, Marinette!" He seemed to mean it. "Although, we do have some parts we need to straighten out a bit more, but I think it's working out really well," he smiled proudly looking over the instruments. The rest of the band members were also taking a break tuning their instruments or drinking some water and chatting with each other.

"I think you performed the second song better this time," Juleka noted.

"You think? I really felt it went easier this time."

"Yeah, it matched the tempo even better."

They went on about some more details and Marinette could only sit there and stare at them. She didn't know that much about music and couldn't understand the nuances of the details they were talking about, but it was interesting to see how much they were into it and how much Luka appreciated his sister's input.

Her eyes wandered after a while, noticing the other members' actions and how well they treated their instruments. The place was really clean as well, it was basically a garage from what she could tell and she expected things to be more stacked away, but they took good care of not letting things get dirty. Apparently, it belonged to one of Luka's friends and it was soundproof enough for their practice. She was feeling a bit jealous of how they got a band and they were together in it. She would have liked to have a common hobby with her friends and work at it.

 _Hmm, well, Alya has helped me when she agreed on being a superhero and we fought together, but she didn't know it was me._

"–rinette, did we bore you? I'm sorry," Juleka asked her noticing how she was looking absentmindedly around the room. She snapped back to attention.

"Oh no," she waved her hands and shook her head. "I was distracted, you didn't bore me or anything!"

Luka was looking at her with a half-smile and he had crossed his arms. He didn't look angry, but he looked like he was ready to do something he shouldn't.

"My sister told me you like the guitar very much," he stated.

"She did?" Her eyes darted to Juleka who was smiling kindly as always. "When did she say it?"

"Just now, when we weren't boring you," he answered with a smirk and her face was on fire. She was truly not bored, but as she did not understand much of what they were saying, her mind just chose to focus on other things in the room. She understood though that it probably didn't look like that to them and was embarrassed by the fact that Luka didn't believe her and that any words she might say would sound like cheap excuses. She knew it was a non-issue, but she didn't know him that well and didn't want to offend him by seemingly ignoring them when she was just a guest.

"Erm… errr," she tried saying swallowing hard and eyes blinking fast. Sometimes she really cursed her inability to act like normal under pressure.

Luka, on the other hand, just laughed. He uncrossed his arms and just looked at her with a face full of good humor and then he said, "Don't worry, Marinette, I was joking. I was actually wondering if you'd like to try playing the guitar."

"W-w-what? Me?" Her face sprang forward in surprise and then immediately sat back making an X with her arms. "No, no, no. I'm not good at it," she said fervently.

"It's ok. Sometimes I let Juleka play a bit too, because she likes it and she can be pretty good at it with a little practice," she ruffled Juleka's hair, who wasn't annoyed by the gesture, although she fixed her hair after he was done.

 _I wish I had a sibling as well, sometimes._

"So what do you say? Want to try?"

"It's fun," Juleka commented. "And who knows, you might find a new hobby for yourself," she smiled encouragingly.

"Well…" she started because she was still not very up for it, especially in front of everyone. And wasn't this their break only?

"Do you still have my pick?" he suddenly asked. Juleka eyed her with curiosity.

"Ah, yes," she answered. "Not with me though, it's in my room."

"Too bad, but we can lend you one," he said and moved towards the instruments.

"He gave me a pick as a present back at the boat," Marinette explained before any questions came. It wasn't a secret and she saw no reason to hide it. It just hadn't come up in a conversation until then. "We are both fans of Jagged Stone and then he gave me the pick as a present." Juleka nodded.

"I see," she nodded again thoughtfully. "You should take care of it then. He really likes his picks."

Marinette had no answer for this, so she laughed awkwardly again before falling into a normal conversation about music for a few minutes. Luka came back with an acoustic guitar in his outstretched hands towards her. She looked at it and then she looked back at him.

"Try it," was all he said.

"I really don't think so," she said a bit more quietly looking at the rest of the room. "Aren't you supposed to be practicing now?"

"Don't worry, someone is running an errand so we will be waiting for a while," he said pointing with his head towards another door. She hadn't seen anyone leave, but she wasn't looking all that carefully either. Counting them did show though that one person was indeed missing.

"Still…" she ventured trying to avoid playing.

"Why not, Marinette?" Juleka asked.

 _I don't know._

She wasn't sure why not. Maybe because she didn't know how to and there were other people there too and she didn't know to make a worse fool of herself. Unfortunately, when they had come before, she managed to trip over a cord on the floor. Luka had apologized for the supposed untidiness of the place, but she knew better that the fault lied in her and she didn't want to have to go through that again. But looking between the 2 siblings, she found those reasons inconsequential. She was having fun and she was with friends, if she counted Luka as a friend, which she realized, she did.

She felt a moment of confidence and took the guitar in her hands. Luka sat on her other side and both siblings were showing her things, although it was mostly Luka instructing her, since Juleka had only learnt some things from him, as well.

After an hour of her own practice, but mostly the band's practice, she returned home, this time just with Juleka since the rest had things to do first. Luka seemed worried since it was late evening by now, but Juleka had walked these streets a lot and they were both together and he would take some time before he was free, so he let them go without fuss.

She was still excited by the events and even more for actually trying to play the guitar. She was atrocious as she thought she would be, but no one seemed bothered and she even learnt a couple things.

After finally reaching home and went up to her room, she checked her phone which was in her bag the entire time after they went to the practice. She was surprised to see various messages from everyone, since it had only been roughly 3 hours that she had left.

She must have looked puzzled for a second, because Tikki, who was also finally free of her bag, asked her if something was wrong.

"Oh no, my friends sent me some photos. Just surprised," she said and sat down on the bed. Tikki moved next to her head and sat on her shoulder watching the screen, as well.

"Is that Ivan and Kim arm wrestling?"

"Yes, and the caption says that Kim lost on a game and Alix dared to do it." It made sense since Ivan may not be that much into sports, but did have strength. Next picture was of Chloé munching secretly the chocolates they gave her, which made both Marinette and Tikki chuckle and the next of Alix and Rose making a castle of cards. There were a few more pictures of them doing silly things and it was mostly the girls that sent her pictures, which she thought was Alya's idea, and one picture from Kim who had drawn on a piece of paper the word 'loser' and pointed at the camera.

"Kim is so competitive," asserted Tikki.

"He really is," she said with no ill will, "but he makes it hard to get mad at," she laughed. She was wondering what he would make her do, but he didn't think he would be mean about it. He sometimes said things without realizing the consequences, but she truly thought he had improved after Chloé had rejected him and he had to move on.

She was almost lying on her bed now when she reached the last photo which was of Adrien sleeping in a chair hugging a teddy bear. She almost managed to trip herself on the bed and fall off of it, but even she was not that clumsy. She read the message along with it that said "For you" and a thumbs up emoji. Once again, she felt warmth throughout her body and couldn't wipe the smile off her face.

"Alya is always thinking about you, isn't she?" Tikki asked with a mysterious smile.

"Alya is great!" she only said and hugged her phone. She decided right then that she would treasure that photo forever. Truth be told, he had already seen a sleeping Adrien that morning when Sabrina showed her the photo, but this so much better (there was no Chloé in it, for starters), because it was just him with a teddy bear that she was certain someone else put it there. "Thank you," she said to the air.

"Are you going to use this as your wallpaper?"

"What are you saying, Tikki?! As if I could do that! But I will definitely save it in every device I own," she beamed. Sometimes she thought that maybe her collection was kind of creepy, but it was not as if she stalked Adrien and took pictures; he was a model and she collected things that any person could have. And if nothing less, Adrien had (unfortunately) seen her collection on tv, a moment she would and could never forget, and he was flattered.

She sat up and fanned her face with her free hand to cool it down, all the while glancing at the photo on her phone.

"You should really get a move on, Marinette. You still have homework for tomorrow," Tikki reminded her out of the blue.

"Homework?" Marinette seemed confused at first. "Homework!" she exclaimed soon after, jumping from the bed. "I totally forgot, what am I going to do?" It might have been a great day, even with Chloé's behavior, but so much time passed and she forgot she had to finish an assignment for tomorrow.

"It shouldn't take long, since you had finished half of it."

She was doing a short research paper on history and she had found all of the sources she would need, but there was quite some writing still, for which she would have time today, but with the surprise visit to Chloé and her already made plans for the band practice, she lost track of time and then, simply forgot it.

"I should hope so," she sighed. She was planning to eat dinner downstairs, but maybe she would have to bring it here, so she wouldn't lose much time on it. "At least you are here to cheer me on, Tikki," she smiled at her a bit more deflated than usual.

"Aww, don't be like that, Marinette, I'm sure it won't take much time."

"You're right," she said after a few seconds of silence with a sudden burst of energy and put her hands on her waist. "We can do this!"

"That's the spirit!" Tikki raised her arm in the air as a sign of support.

"I'm going to quickly grab the history book from the balcony. Can you turn on my computer for me so we will save time?"

"Sure. And you should really not leave your things on the balcony like that," Tikki chastised her with a smile.

"You're right, but it was such a nice day yesterday that I couldn't resist."

She climbed up and opened the hatch when she saw a shadow passing in front of her. She closed the hatch again just so she had enough space to see and squeezed on the handle.

 _Who could it be? Should I change into Ladybug?_

The shadow appeared again and she focused more to the person that shadow belonged to. They were walking back and forth from what she could tell, but she could only see the feet from the small opening of the hatch.

 _They do look oddly familiar… Ah!_

She opened the hatch and stepped out.

"Chat Noir?"


	11. A visit from a cat

_**Author's note:** Oh my! Somehow I got 10 followers since last chapter, which is amazing! Was it Luka? Maybe that should have been my pairing? Hahaha. But you know what that means, right? Story going downhill, because suddenly expectations are crushing me, haha. Oh well, thank you all for following and for any person who left a review. It's fun reading them!_

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"Eh?" He froze in place looking at her with a blank face.

"What are you doing here?" she said stepping out completely and closing the hatch.

"What am I… eh…," he started with the same blank face. Marinette stepped closer.

"Are you all right? Chat Noir?" She waved her hand where she stood a meter away, wondering if he could even see her properly.

"Yes!" he answered suddenly and he went back into the usual demeanor he usually held that Marinette had known, or at least he tried hard to look like he did. "Yes, it is I, Chat Noir at your service," he said and bowed with a wave of his own arm.

"Haha, thanks for the offer," she laughed and then asked him again if he was all right.

"Yes, of course." He stood straight and puffed up his chest. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because you are here, for starters," she retorted. "What are you doing?" she asked this time with more concern than before.

It was strange enough that he was into his costume, even more so because he was pacing on her balcony. She hadn't noticed anything going on in the city with a new Akuma, but maybe there was an emergency and she had just not noticed it being away all day. With every passing second, she felt worse thinking she didn't do her job properly and people might be in danger because of her.

"Oh, nothing… I was just helping with some minor issues," he scrambled to find the words, "A cat was stuck in a tree and the fire department was already busy saving another cat and I couldn't really abandon a fellow cat in need now, could I?" he said with a matter-of-fact tone. He seemed a bit all over the place, but she figured it was just her mistaken idea.

"Of course not," she sighed with relief. "I was worried there could have been more serious danger," she confessed.

"You were worried about my safety, princess?" He put both his hands on his heart.

"More like worried over you being here and leaving Paris unprotected," she said mischievously with a half-smile.

"Would it be unprotected though? There's Ladybug," he said with a careful tone of lightness and something else, more focused. She wasn't sure why he seemed like that today, but she almost fell for her own words since she was Ladybug and if she was here and Chat Noir was also here, that would mean no one was dealing with any kind of danger. But Chat Noir didn't know her identity; all he knew was that Ladybug would save the day even if he were here, talking to her as Marinette.

"B-but of course," she agreed. "But you do make a great team together, don't you think?"

"I sure hope so, otherwise what am I doing?" He laughed and looked over the rails. She came to stand by him next to the rails.

"You didn't tell me, what are you doing here?"

"I said I was helping a cat–"

"No, I mean _here_ on the balcony. Or are you telling me the cat was on my balcony?" she joked. He laughed a bit looking at her.

"No no, the cat wasn't here. I…," he paused looking back over the rails, "wanted to think for a while and there's a great view here," he rushed towards the end of the sentence, as if it were an excuse.

"Better view than the Eiffel tower?" she asked with a bit less humor, since he seemed kind of serious, but she wanted to lighten the mood as much as possible, so he wouldn't feel down.

He laughed again and shook his head.

"No, I suppose not, but… I rather like it here. Yeah, that's it," he nodded as if to convince himself.

"Thank you for the compliment, I suppose. I do like my balcony, as well" She leaned over the rails and put her elbows on them. "Erm, are you sure you are okay though?"

She couldn't decide how he looked, she thought to herself. One moment he was his usual self with the jokes and the light lines and the next moment he seemed almost sober, as if he had secrets or problems he didn't want to share. She truly valued Chat Noir as one of her friends (despite the big secrets between them) and wanted to help him in any way that she could, but she wasn't close to him in this form and wasn't sure how to breach that topic.

Then again, they had that night when she was the cause of André getting akumarized, that they became closer, divulging things to each other that they probably wouldn't have otherwise, but it was too sensitive of a topic to breach. She looked towards him. His gaze was far away and he was tapping the rails with his fingers.

 _Does it have to do with Ladybug once again? Could I even help with that?_

He stopped the tapping and looked at her for a moment. "Yes, why are you asking?" His tone was definitely light.

"Oh, nothing," she said quietly, "y-you just said you wanted to think, so…," she said bashfully. "Wait, am I bothering you?" she asked louder than she wanted to. "I should leave you to think alone. How inconsiderate of me." She moved to leave, but he grabbed her hand.

"What? No, no." He seemed surprised at her words. He left her hand free with some sudden move and then used the same hand to run it through his hair as if that was what he wanted to do all along. "Stay with me, Marinette," he said casually.

"S-sure," she stammered a bit once again wondering what was going on. He was acting strangely. She took the same position as before leaning over the rails.

"So… what's up?" he asked with a smile.

"Hmm," she pondered, "not too bad. Busy everyday with school and all. But… is that really what you wanted to ask me?" She looked at him with a puzzled look.

At the same time Marinette was asking her question, Adrien's mind was racing to find an answer. To be completely fair, he wasn't really planning to meet her today like this and he was contemplating about leaving when she caught him. But now that she had, he was feeling reluctant to just let her go. It might have been an urge coming here, but now that he was and happened to see her, he didn't want to waste his chance.

"Hmm," he said thinking what would be the best way to answer her. He didn't want to lie to her, but he could hardly ask her about her double identity, but did he really have to ask her something? Luka popped up in his mind and before he could remove that thought from his mind, his mouth formed a question. "How is your crush going?"

His eyes widened faster than Marinette's, which had eventually become 2 full circles looking at him.

 _Did I really ask that?_

"I'm sorry, that was insensitive," he added quickly looking somewhere over her head.

 _But now that it's brought up, where's the harm?_

He lowered his eyes towards her face again before saying "I just… I was just wondering if you were feeling better," he said slowly measuring his words. "I think of you as my romantic partner," he claimed with a smile and realized too late that his wording wasn't what he really meant when Marinette's eyes managed to become even bigger. She had said nothing, but stared at him all those seconds it took him to actually form words.

He felt his cheeks go warm, even though he wasn't the type to blush that easily, but he kept making mistakes and he started thinking that he was losing control of the situation. He turned his face abruptly so she wouldn't notice and added in a more light way, "I meant it as in partner in crime, haha." He never felt his laugh as fake as that moment and surely she could see it too, but he didn't know what else to do.

After a few seconds of silence and of Adrien avoiding looking at her, he heard her finally speak again.

"Is everything ok with Ladybug?" she asked quietly.

"Huh?" He turned towards her and he could see she had calmed down from before and maybe she was guarded just a bit. "What do you mean?"

"You look down today and you brought up romance… Are you ok?" She looked worried. Was it because _she_ was Ladybug and felt guilty? Because she wasn't? Because she cared?

 _Well, if she was Ladybug she did care. She has been my real partner for a long time now._

What was he supposed to answer to that though? It's only been a few days, but he really wanted to get this over with because his curiosity had peaked and he also wanted to straighten out his confused emotions. Could he like Marinette? Did he like her already? Was he betraying Ladybug? Was he that fickle?

"I'm ok…" he said slowly, "It's just one of these days," he tried to excuse himself, "and you're such a good listener, so…" he trailed off, but he smiled at her as per usual trying to pass it off as normal as he could. He didn't really want to be gloomy either way, if he could only have a normal conversation with her, it would be perfect.

She seemed troubled for a few seconds, but her face relaxed a bit more and smiled just a bit.

"If you must know…, it's the same," she finally said looking at the sky.

"What is?"

She lowered her eyes to him again. "My crush. You asked about it."

"Ah! Yes, I did," he almost tripped over his words. He waited for her to speak again, but he was met with silence. "So, it's not going well?"

"Mmm, I don't think it's going at all," she said wistfully. "But I really don't mind!" she added quickly waving her hands.

"You don't?"

"I don't. Well, I do, but I don't. I do and I don't," she tried to explain.

"That was most helpful, Marinette," he genuinely laughed. She blushed.

"I'm just happy to be near him." She shrugged. "What about you?" she seemed more careful with her question.

"About me and Ladybug? Nothing," he said. If he lied to her that something was going on, would Marinette react to that knowing it was a lie?

"So, no change?" she asked curiously. He looked at her straight then. There was definitely a change, that's for sure, but should he say?

"There's been a change," he muttered to himself while looking away, but he was still heard.

"Really?" She seemed surprised. "What is it?"

"I–" he started, but couldn't finish. What was he supposed to say? "Nothing too important," he smiled weakly. There would be a good time to talk to her about it, but for now he needed to know more about her crush. It wouldn't do to confess to her at some point only to be rejected 5 seconds later.

 _Confess…_

He shook his head and she eyed him suspiciously.

"Talk to me more about you, princess," he said lightly once again. "If my romance is doomed, at least yours won't be."

She smiled a bit again, but it did not reach her eyes and she kept silent again for a while.

"I don't really have much to say today. I'm in a good mood and I don't think about it much," she said with an honest smile.

"Good mood, eh?" he pondered out loud. "Why?" Then he thought of Luka. "Did you see him today?"

She blushed, but didn't answer right away. "I did, but that's not it."

"Hmm?" he asked, noticing he was gripping the balcony rails a bit harder than before and relaxed his fingers.

"… Nothing really." She shook her head. "I'm just happy as things are right now. Or at least I don't think of how it is an unrequited crush, I suppose," she said thoughtfully. "Do _you_ feel down every day?" It may have been a serious questions, but she was half-smiling, proof that she was not expecting a positive answer from him.

"Of course not," he responded immediately, because the truth was that he didn't feel as down as he expected himself to be. He was happy with Ladybug and just sometimes, he couldn't help wanting more and more of her attention. That was something that was happening ever more often these days, so his mood has been further… moody, sometimes.

She nodded at his answer, expecting it. "But today you feel down?"

"Hmm, to put it as eloquently as you did before: I do and I don't." He couldn't resist smiling as he said it. She giggled next to him, as well, which made him just a tad happier. "I think…," he started again pacing around, "I think that we just started off at the wrong paw," he said with a genuine smile. "Honestly, I just wanted a bit of company and hearing about your adventures is fun."

"Adventures? I don't really have any."

"Ah, your would-be adventures. Why have you not confessed yet?" He went back to that same topic, because… well, because he could. And wanted to. And he was now in a better mood thanks to her.

"You're very direct today, Chat Noir," she nervously giggled, while averting her eyes.

"Can a cat be anything other than curious?"

"I suppose… but do you know what they say about curiosity and cats," she reminded him.

"You wound me!" He put once again his hands over his heart. "You wish me harm, princess? Me, your knight?"

She chuckled. "Not me," she said and shook her head. "But curiosity…" she trailed off.

"Well then, maybe you can quench my thirst of knowledge and I will be safe."

"What was the question again?"

"Why have you not confessed yet?" He took some pleasure into teasing her now. The conversation was truly personal and one he really cared about the outcome of it, but seeing her silently squirm was interesting.

"… It's not easy, you know," she grumbled, but didn't seem to take it to heart.

"But you seem such a sweet girl, Marinette, and you even had a couple of fans! There is no one who wouldn't like your confession," he said with conviction, because he truly believed it. But the more he thought about it, the more he doubted himself. If she had confessed to him before, would he accept it? He couldn't be sure, but the answer was most probably a no, since his heart was set on Ladybug. So in the end, it wasn't really the truth. But he would have definitely liked it, just like the time when he learnt she was a huge fan of his modeling career.

She blushed at the compliment, but didn't seem to accept it judging by her face. "It's not that easy really. He d-doesn't like me," she said with a red face looking at her feet.

"How do you know?"

"I-I just know," she said with a deflated and disappointed voice.

"But you have never confessed to him. Wait!" he suddenly said, "Does he have a girlfriend then?" Did Luka have a girlfriend? He didn't know. In fact, he didn't even know how long Marinette knew Luka really. Was it even Luka the one she liked? She did say she saw him today though, could it be one of the people she came over to the hotel?

"Nonono!" She waved her hands while shaking her head, as well. "Not as far as I know. But he is generally well-liked," she added. "I've said too much!" She slapped her cheeks.

 _Musicians are definitely well-liked… Does she mean he has groupies to choose from?_

"Maybe you should move on from that guy then," he concluded with a feeling of guilty lurking inside him. It wasn't a piece of advice he would give her, but just maybe…

"Easier said than done," her answer came immediately and then, she turned to look at him with a look he couldn't exactly translate. Offended? Disappointment towards him? Pity? "Could you get over Ladybug that easily? Would you even want to?"

He hadn't thought about it, but he definitely planned to win her love at some point, never give up on her.

"I suppose you're right," he said after a pause and an awkward silence fell upon them.

"I am trying to get closer to him," she said quietly. He just turned to look at him. "I will confess to him!" She said resolutely. "One day!"

He would have laughed, if he didn't feel a pain around his chest. She didn't notice his reaction though, but checked her phone.

"Oh wow, I'm sorry, but I have to go! I only came up here to pick up a book I left." She raised the book which was now in her hands. "I have to finish an assignment and I don't have much time left," she said fast and then she slowed down and cocked her head to the side. "Will you be ok? Do you maybe need some more company?"

"Naw, it's ok." He smiled. "I feel better already and this was a fun conversation. I might just come again to chat."

"Thank you for the honor, Chat Noir." She chuckled and the light tone of the conversation had returned.

"The honor is mine, princess." He bowed to her.

She was opening the hatch and moving inside when she stopped for a second. "You know, you said I'm a good listener, but you said nothing about yourself."

"Is that so? I didn't notice."

"Hmmm!" she said pointedly. "Alright, good night, Chat Noir." He wished her the same and she went back into her room, while he was left all alone on the balcony.

"Well, that went well," he muttered to himself and then he sighed. _I should go home._ He might have escaped Chloé's clutches for a while today and left together with everyone else, but he still had responsibilities to take care of at home. It was a miracle that his father had allowed him to be away for so long, but he supposed it was courtesy to Chloé's mother, an old friend.

He stretches his body and shook his arms and legs, because he felt suddenly stiff, although his mind was still pondering the conversation he had with Marinette. He had approached her a couple times the past few days, but every time it felt lacking since the discussion led nowhere; he didn't know her crush, he didn't have hard proof she was Ladybug and by now, he might probably be pestering her with his questions.

 _She might dislike me faster than I could make her like me… Which me though, hmm…_

As he was finally ready to leave the balcony and head home, his phone started ringing. He checked it only to see his father's picture staring at him. He took off from Marinette's balcony, just to be safe and landed on somewhere more remote and he answered the call. His dad was once again strict about curfew and the fact that he was alone without the car made things worse.

 _Time to rush home, then._

After he left, Marinette was still struggling with her assignment and didn't have much time to think over her strange by all accounts conversation with Chat Noir. She had to focus on finishing it up, because she was already feeling tired and she really just wanted to rest. Tikki's encouraging words sounded once in a while with a simple "You can do it, Marinette!" and "Just a bit more!" and she somehow got some power from her. Of course, Tikki was also helping her with finding certain pages in books and even finding the books she needed, which made the whole procedure go by faster, or at least seem like it.

By the time she finished, it was midnight and she was wondering why she wasn't asleep. She knew the answer of course, but it still was an important question.

"Don't forget to send it," Tikki reminded her.

"Yes…" she responded sleepily. She checked twice she had the right file and the right email and finally sent it. "It's done!" She would have put her arms up, but she was feeling sooo tired by now and her dinner had been pretty small, so all she could do was yawn. "It's really done." It had only been a few hours, but she felt as if she were working at it the whole day and now that she was finally done, the exhaustion hit her like a wave.

She dragged herself to the bed and changed into her pajamas. She moved her things aside and slid into bed and just as she was putting her phone aside, she noticed it was blinking. She fiddled with it a bit, but her eyes were closing faster than she expected. She saw that she had a new message, which she hadn't seen earlier as she was focused on her assignment and her phone was on the bed. She didn't manage to check it properly, before she fell asleep with the phone in her hands.

"Good night, Marinette," Tikki told her, but she barely heard it and just made a sound in return. Tikki tucked her in properly and went to sleep herself.


	12. Dream or nightmare?

" _No Chloé, I didn't do this!" Marinette shouted exasperated._

" _You're a liar, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!" Chloé pointed her finger towards her._

" _I'm not!"_

" _Then how did my ring end up in your bag?"_

" _I… I don't know! I didn't take it!" She started looking around her for some support. She was in class and Chloé was in front of her, while the rest of the class had formed a circle around them. She could even see people from the city surrounding her in a circle._

" _Liar, liar, pants on fire," Chloé chanted and suddenly everyone started chanting "Liar, liar" in the background with her in the lead still pointing at her._

" _No, I'm not lying!" She was trying to shout, but her voice couldn't be heard easily over everyone else's. She took a step back, but she tripped and fell on her back. Immediately, all those around her had their fingers pointing at her and she couldn't manage to get up herself._

" _Marinette!" She heard a voice from her left and saw Adrien was giving her a helping hand to get up. She smiled gratefully to him and stretched her own hand to hold it._

" _Marinette!" She heard a voice from her left this time and twirled her head to see Luka holding his own hand out with a kind smile._

" _Let me help you, Marinette," Luka said with a smile._

" _No, let me help you, Marinette," Adrien said from the other side._

 _She hesitated for a moment and the "Liar, liar!" chanting became louder again. She withdrew her arm and looks right and left wildly seeing both Adrien and Luka get swallowed up from the crowd._

" _Marinette!" A third voice came, but Marinette couldn't figure from where and she started to panic the moment she couldn't see those 2. "Marinette!" The voice said again. "Wake up!" She started shaking her head. "It's time to wake up! Marinet –"_

She woke up with a jolt before the voice, who belonged to Tikki, completed the sentence. She stared at the ceiling for 5 seconds with wide eyes and sat up.

"Are you ok, Marinette? Did you have a bad dream? You kept turning sides."

"Uhh, I think so. I don't really remember well. I think I saw Chloé and we were fighting…"

"Fighting with Chloé? That is certainly not a good dream."

"Mhm… But I think Adrien helped me," she said hesitantly at first and then decidedly nodded.

"That's so romantic! It may have been a good dream, then."

"I'm not too sure, but if he tried protecting me, it must have been!" She flashed Tikki a smile before lying down again.

"What are you doing, Marinette? Get up or you'll be late!"

"What?"

She checked her phone and got up immediately running around to get everything done; she washed herself, wore her clothes, prepared her bag, grabbed some breakfast from downstairs, kissed her parents lightly on the cheek and ran out of the door. She didn't give another thought to the dream and focused on not being late, especially since she had worked so hard on her assignment.

She arrived at school on time, although she kept hoping that maybe if she were a bit late and Adrien was a bit late, they could be a bit late together like last time, but she couldn't force herself to walk slower nor could she force the weather to rain when she wanted to. She felt a bittersweet happiness when she got into her class lost in her own fantasies, but she soon forgot about that too when she sat next to Alya.

"Good morning, person who abandoned us yesterday!" she joked. "What did you think about the pictures?"

"Aww, you know I had to go! And good morning to you too."

"Aaaand the pictures?"

"Of course they were great! It was your idea to send me what you were doing then?"

"Yes, but only because I wanted to send you that last picture first," she said closer to her. Marinette's eyes got wide and looked guiltily at her phone and then around her as if someone knew what she had in there and would call her out on it. She looked over at Adrien's desk, but he was conversing with Nino and he wasn't paying attention to them.

"I have to really thank you for that," she whispered with her wide, bright eyes trying to keep her excitement down.

"I was sure you'd appreciate it, girl." She winked. "Now tell me, what happened yesterday? I didn't even know you had arranged to go to Luka's practice," she said louder this time.

"I had almost forgotten myself actually, but it was actually pretty great," she said animated, "Their music is so good and it's always refreshing to hear a band from up close. And, don't laugh, but I even learnt how to play a bit of guitar!"

"Whaaat? How come? Don't tell me you played with the band!" she said with an amused face. Marinette just laughed in response.

"No way. Juleka and Luka offered to show me some things during a break."

"And you accepted just like that?" Alya knew her too well to be suspicious of her sudden proactiveness to try something like that in front of others and Marinette smiled at that.

"It wasn't just like that, they had to convince me first! But I'm glad I did, though I don't think I was that good." She giggled a bit at her memory from the previous day.

"So… are you going to get more lessons from Luka?" Her tone was conspiratorial, but Marinette didn't notice and thought about it seriously.

"I don't think so. It was just a one-time thing, because we were already there. He's already helping Juleka."

"So much better then! You could learn together," she continued.

"I don't really have time for that, but why are you so insistent on it? Would I look that great in a band?"

"That would be a marvel to watch," she said and smiled, "but I just think Luka could be a great teacher for you."

"Why?" she asked, still too blind to her friend's hints.

"You have many common interests and he's cool." This time she winked and Marinette finally registered her meaning.

"W-what are you saying?" she tried to say and looked forward again towards Adrien, who seemed a touch less spirited than before and made her wonder what they were talking about. "There's nothing between… you know!"

"Oh, I know. For now." She gave her one of her smiles again and before she could counter back, she turned to Rose who was close by and started talking her about her blog.

Marinette had stayed with an indignant look staring at her back, a bit miffed for missing the time to make her case against her friend's assumptions. Alya knew who she liked and if anything, they were just talking about Adrien's picture on her phone. Since when Alya had thoughts about her and _Luka_? She admired him for his talent and the way he viewed things, but liking him that way?

She flushed a bit thinking of their past exchanges through that perspective; he had helped her before and he had given her one of his picks, his words had resonated with her and he always seemed to know the right thing to say. He even taught her how to play the guitar and ice-skate before… She snapped her head upwards when she remembered Luka and Adrien trying to help her up when she had slipped on the ice, but she didn't immediately choose Adrien. At the time she thought it would be rude to reject any of them, but could it be something else?

 _That's just what friends do, don't they?_ She shook her head. _What's the point of this, Luka doesn't even like me._

She set her things straight just as the bell rang and teacher came in. She fell easily into the routine of listening and keeping notes, while exchanging a comment or two with Alya. She even managed to talk to Adrien when he asked her for an eraser. It was always pleasant when they talked, even for something as small as an eraser, but now thinking of him, kind of brought Alya's words back about Luka and couldn't focus very well. That ice-skating date didn't go well for her really and Adrien wanted help to get along with Kagami more. Her worst nightmare might have been Adrien dating Chloé, but Kagami felt more of a possible scenario. She was lucky she was attending a different school, so there was no progress between the 2, as far as she knew at least. If Adrien had a girlfriend, everyone would know, wouldn't they? Especially Chloé.

She tried to refocus on the lesson again, but her efforts were futile as a crumbled paper fell on her desk surprising her. She opened it up only to read "DON'T FORGET THE BET!" She immediately turned her head towards Kim who was smirking at her and she kind of smiled too. Losing to him didn't seem as daunting before, but now that the time to decide on it had come, it felt less of a joke and more of a dreaded reality setting in. She still thought it was funny how things played out, but now there was an added worry of what he would make her do.

She showed the note to Alya who rolled eyes to it and crumbled it again before throwing it back at him. Marinette just laughed and tried to focus on the board the teacher was writing on.

By the time the bell rang for a break, Marinette felt relieved because she handed in her assignment with a sense of pride that she had managed to do it all well. Miss Bustier even had looked at her assignment online and she gave her early compliments on it, so at least that was done and dealt with.

She strode out with a big smile outside the classroom with Alya when Kim stopped her in her tracks by standing in front of her and his hands on his waist with a more triumphed smile than her own.

"Marinette, it's time to decide on your punishment game!" he announced.

"Ah, must it be now? Can't I go eat first?" she said trying to wiggle her way out of it for a bit longer or to at least avoid the decision being made with everyone still around them.

"Nope!" he exclaimed.

"Right… Ok then, let's hear it, what is it going it be?" She braced herself. She was safe knowing that Kim wouldn't ask of her something malicious and Chloé wasn't here to propose something evil as per usual. Being his personal servant for a day might not be so bad.

"I need you to get me a two layered cake by tomorrow for my grandmother's birthday!" he said crossing his arms this time.

"A cake? Oh, I can do that!" she agreed, although she knew he'd use her parents' help for it. She didn't think they would have a problem with it and she didn't have anything else to do that day, hence she agreed right away, before Kim possibly changed his mind, as well.

"That was easy. I expected you to say no."

"Why? It was my loss, after all," she graciously accepted her defeat. "Now tell me, what flavor does she like?" she asked and took out a paper from her bag to note down the details.

Kim's face relaxed a bit more once he started talking about his grandmother. "She really likes strawberry flavor, but has a soft spot for chocolate too. She used to give me a lot of chocolate bunnies when I was young," he said happily.

"A small Kim, can you imagine it?" Alya said teasingly, but with a kind tone. Kim straightened up a bit, but didn't seem offended.

"Easily," Rose said and they all had this mental image of a hyperactive Kim running around.

"And any preference in colors?" Marinette returned to the topic at hand.

"She likes orange," he said after thinking a bit.

"Haha, an orange looking strawberry and chocolate cake. It'll be fun to make. Do you want me to add her name or age on the cake?"

"No, just 'Happy Birthday'," he told her before telling her it should be ready by tomorrow, because his family would visit soon after school.

"Can't believe you have to work for him, girl. But a cake for his grandma is cute, I have to admit," Alya started once they continued their way towards the courtyard.

"I expected worse things, to be honest," she admitted, "but this is something I would do even if I hadn't lost the game. He must really love his grandmother!"

"He omitted her name and age, though."

"I think he didn't even realize that." She giggled at Kim's thoughtful gesture towards his grandma to the point he forgot part of the important details.

They were sitting at the courtyard now eating and chatting away.

"Do you want to come and help me with it? Of course, my parents will help, but the more the merrier," Marinette suggested.

"No can do, girl. I have to work on a podcast I'm making. I was planning on asking you to come along actually, but the cake and all."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, even though she knew it wasn't her fault and Alya didn't say it just so she would apologize. It could also be a bit weird working on a Ladybug podcast (because what other kind of podcast would it be?), when it's about herself. "Will you ask Nino then?"

"Already have. Like you said, the more the merrier." She winked. "But we'll make do on our own. Maybe the girls wanna come over too." She looked around checking where the girls were sitting.

"Aww, you'll all get together and I'll be at home alone," she pouted.

"Ah, the life of the defeated," Alya said dramatically and they both laughed.

"Actually, I should inform my parents about the cake early on," she said while taking out her phone. "Probably not the best idea to surprise them out of the blue."

"But they are the best, they would do it in a jiffy!" she pointed out and Marinette just smiled, because she loved her parents and she loved other people loving them too for their skills.

"Thanks," she said shyly with her hand on her cheek. She unlocked her phone and sent a message to her mother about later. "There, I think it should be ok."

"Will you bake me something too?"

Marinette laughed. "I don't know if I'll have the time, but I'm sure we will have some spare cookies to share!" She was about to lock her phone again and put it in the bag, but she noticed the message under the one she had just sent wasn't with pictures, the ones her friends had sent her, but before she could check properly and not with the corner of her eye, her mom replied with a positive response and Alya distracted her.

"Your mom is fast!"

"Mm? Yes, she is either really fast or really slow, if she has forgotten her phone somewhere in the house, haha."

"Ah, Alix," said Alya to the passing classmate, "do you want to come to my house later to help me with a podcast?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, I can't today, family outing." Alix said cocking her head sadly.

"Is everyone busy today? Unlucky," Alya sighed.

"Better ask Mylène or Rose, I heard they were free today."

"Really? Thanks, Alix. And have fun later!"

"I'll try," Alix said with a fake sigh and went on her way.

Marinette had already absent-mindedly put her phone in her bag and was watching as Alya was trying to recruit people for her project. Thankfully both Mylène and Rose were indeed free and would come along with Nino to help.

The rest of the school day passed without an incident and Marinette was looking at Adrien's back with a bit of sadness that they hadn't really exchanged many words since the eraser and it prickled a little, because she really felt as if they had a special moment at Chloé's house, but maybe it really was in her mind. She had acted as a fool too, so he was probably sparing her the embarrassment.

She felt a bit daring though, so as soon as the class ended, she approached him first repeating her opening line again and again so she wouldn't make any mistake.

"H-hey, Adrien."

 _Don't stumble on any words now, Marinette_! She berated herself.

"Hey, what's up?" Adrien smiled as he was putting his bag over his shoulder. Marinette stared at his big, bright green eyes for a second, before continuing the conversation.

"Ah, I was wondering if you spoke with Chloé at all today. Is she feeling better?" She congratulated herself for articulating herself properly.

"She sent me a message this morning and she was feeling a bit better, but she's still running a fever so her dad didn't let her go to school," he answered casually. Did he really not care about their conversation in Chloé's room? He had called her cute, indirectly.

She flushed right away upon remembering the scene and to hide herself, she immediately looked at the floor.

"T-thanks. I was worried since I left early," she said looking at her own shoes.

"Are you ok, Marinette?" He sounded concerned, but she couldn't look up, because her memory and fantasies were running wild now.

"Yesp, I mean yes or yup… or both, haha. I'm alright!" She could hear herself not sounding alright though.

"Are you sure, can I help somehow?" Was it her fantasy or did he sound eager? Or maybe eager to help the crazy person. She shook her head.

"N-n-n…" Could he help with something? Did she have the courage to ask? She forced her face against his and said as calmly as she could. "If you want, you can help m-me with Kim's cake."

 _There, I said it!_

Adrien's eyebrows went up and Marinette thought she must have sounded weird with that request. Why would he help her with a cake?

"You don't have to come if you don't want to though, you shouldn't be forced to help and you, Adrien Agreste, shouldn't be baking a cake I should be making, so no worries. Just, you know…," she was talking too fast.

But his face went back to normal and smiled.

"Of course I'll come, it'll be fun."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Why not?"

"I don't know." She was a bit overwhelmed by what had just happened. Did she invite him to her home and he agreed to come and help?

"It's settled then, shall we go?" He stepped aside and gestured towards the classroom's door. Alya was just outside and was giving her thumbs up when Adrien wasn't looking.

"Now?" she asked.

"Should I come later?"

"Uh, no no! It's fine, now is great," she managed to say and smiled.

They both left the classroom, side by side, although Marinette was walking at first rigidly, but having some space in her mind for herself now without having to answer something, she calmed herself and by the time they reached the school's entrance, she could even hold a conversation. Everyone had left them alone and she could see it was on purpose as sometimes she would catch her with the corner of her eye looking at them happily. She was blessed with great friends.

"Should we buy any ingredient for the cake?" Adrien asked her as they were leaving school grounds.

"No, my mother would have told me otherwise. I think we are good to go." She smiled.

"Marinette!" Marinette heard a male voice calling out to her from behind her and stopped walking to address whoever it was. "There you are, I thought I might miss you," the voice that belonged to Luka said. She was beyond surprised he was there, especially now that she was almost alone with Adrien.

"Luka? Um, hello. What are you doing here?" She was confused. "Are you looking for Juleka? She already left," she said as that made the most logical explanation as to why he was there.

"No, I'm here for you. Hello, Adrien."

"Hello, Luka. What's up?"

"Everything's well, but I'm glad I bumped into you too. I wanted to ask you if you wanted to join us for a performance some time."

"What? Me?"

"Yes, I really wanted to hear you play more piano."

"Wow, thanks, I'd really like to try," he said excitedly, though Marinette was sure he seemed a bit tense before. Luka then turned to her.

"You didn't remember I'd be coming by?" he asked her.

"I didn't… When did you tell me?" She frowned trying to think when she had made a promise she forgot.

"Yesterday, I texted you and you replied some time later," he explained.

"Yesterday?" She tried to remember, but there was no recollection of her reading a message from Luka. She would have certainly not forgotten that.

 _Ah… that text._

She took out her phone and checked her messages to see the one she had spotted earlier but didn't look at properly. His name was on top and once she opened their conversation, she saw she had sent her a message while she was studying about checking out a new guitar shop together since everyone else was busy and she had seemed interested. And not only she had supposedly read the message, but she had replied to it too.

Her fingers started trembling a bit and she was fighting the flushing with all her heart.

"Do you remember now?"

"It was an accident!" she said louder than she wanted to. "I mean, I was about to sleep right then and I didn't… didn't really read it. That's why my answer was… yeah, that, hahaha" she said trying to smile. She didn't notice Adrien glancing at her fingers that seemed jumpy and then consequently on her phone which was in her hands and which showed her reply was a heart emoji.

Luka just smiled. "So you're busy today as well, huh?" he asked without laughing at her.

Marinette was remembering Alya's words about Luka and that accidental reply she had sent while she was fighting off sleep and couldn't answer for a moment. Had she really answered with a heart emoji? A HEART EMOJI? And Luka took that as a yes? How did that even happen?

 _Now Alya has made me too self-conscious._

Adrien swept in to her rescue when she seemed to be searching for words.

"Yeah, we had some plans today at her house," he replied.

"Bummer," he said a bit dejectedly. "I wanted a second opinion, but I guess I can wait for tomorrow before practice."

"I'm sorry," Marinette apologized. "I really didn't see it," she explained trying to ignore how a heart emoji was sent.

"It's no problem. Really, Marinette it's ok." He smiled kindly, but she still felt guilty and amidst her confused state that her mind was in, the first thought that came to mind was that she should make it up to him.

"Do you want to come with us?" she blurted out without processing what she said.

"With you?"

"Yeah, we are making a cake and you could help if you want."

 _What am I saying?! Adrien is right here and I'm making this more awkward for all of us?!_

Luka looked between her and Adrien and thought otherwise.

"No, it's ok, I have other things to do, unfortunately."

"Oh," she gasped. "Another day then!"

"I'll keep you to that," he agreed with a smile and then after a few pleasantries among the 3 while walking towards the same direction, they split ways.

"Marinette, are you ok?" Adrien asked her after they had walked on their own for a couple of minutes. How many times had he asked that of her?

"I think so," she said without thinking and then snapped back to attention. "I mean, I'm good. I just feel guilty this happened, but Kim's cake… I'm so stupid," she confessed, because it wasn't possible to hide from Adrien since he had witnessed everything.

"No, you aren't, but ok, that was a funny blunder," he tried to alleviate the mood.

"No no, it was stupid." She hid her face in her hands. "He came down here for nothing. I should really make it up to him."

"Yeah…"

"Maybe I should make a small cake for him too as an apology."

"I'm sure he doesn't mind, but if it made you feel better, I'm sure it'll be ok. Now, don't worry and let's do it!"

She smiled gratefully towards him and tried to ignore every other thought about how stupid she was and how could she have sent a heart emoji. She decided that with a cake, she would apologize to him properly and explain to him about the emoji. Again. Or maybe not mention it ever.

They reached the bakery and went inside.


End file.
